: 


THEY  MUST 


God  and  The  Social 
Democracy 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THEY  MUST 


HERMANN    KUTTER 


THEY   MUST; 

OR 

GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 


A  FRANK  WORD  TO  CHRISTIAN  MEN  AND  WOMEN 


BY 

HERMANN  KUTTER 

MINISTER  AT  THE  NEW  MINSTER  IN  ZURICH 


American  Editor 

RUFUS  W.   WEEKS 


PUBLISHED  BY   THE 

CO-OPERATIVE  PRINTING   COMPANY 

CHICAGO 

All  Rights  Reserved 


Copyright,  1908 

BY  THE 

CO-OPERATIVE  PRINTING  COMPANY 
CHICAGO 

All  Rights  Reserved 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

Preface  by  the  American  Editor 7 

Author's  Address  to  American   Read- 
ers       15 

I.     How  the  Bip.le  Speaks  of  God. 24 

II.     The  Social  Democracy  and  Atheism..  31 
III.     The  Social  Democracy  and  Christian- 
ity    65 

IV.     The  Social  Democracy  and  Revolution  107 

V.     The  Social  Democracy  and  Sin 135 

VI.     The  Social  Democracy  and  MATERIAL- 
ISM        155 

VII.     The  Social  Democracy  and  Morality.  .   175 

VIII.     The  Social  Democracy  and  Patriotism  203 

IX.     All  Things  Must  Become  New 211 

APPENDIX 

The  List  of  Sustainers 217 

The  Best  Things  to  Read  227 


1431058 


PBEFACE  BY  THE   AMERICAN  EDITOR 

The  economic  life  of  man,  the  political  life  of  man, 
the  religious  life  of  man — these  three  are  the  main 
lines  which  make  up  the  unceasing  march  of  the  hu- 
man race  called  history;  and  it  is  the  form  and  charac- 
ter of  these  three  activities,  primarily  of  the  economic, 
secondarily  of  the  political  and  religious,  which  de- 
termine the  varying  degrees  of  welfare  or  misery  that 
are  the  lot  of  the  human  race,  generation  by  genera- 
tion. 

As,  from  the  vantage  ground  of  our  own  generation, 
we  look  back  and  then  with  ardent  desire  peer  forward, 
everyone  who  has  a  mind  hopeful  and  unshackled, 
feels  sure  of  so  much  as  this :  that  the  human  race  will 
in  time  find  the  law  of  harmony  for  its  economic  life, 
the  law  of  harmony  for  its  political  life,  the  law  of 
harmony  for  its  religious  life,  and  will  subject  itself 
fully  to  these  laws.  This  means  that  instead  of  the 
discord  and  cross  purposes  which  now  rule  industry 
and  business  and  which  have  always  ruled  them,  will 
finally  come  the  fullness  of  co-operation  ;  when  there 
shall  be  no  more  tug  of  war,  but  all  shall  be  pulling  to 
one  end.  It  means  also  a  like  stable  reconciliation  of 
elements  now  struggling  in  the  field  of  statecraft,  and 
it  means  a  similar  peace  in  the  domain  of  religion. 

It  will  then  be  as  if  the  human  race,  after  weary  and 
woeful  centuries  of  climbing,  with  times,  alas,  of  retro- 
gression, had  at  last  emerged  upon  the  level  desired  so 


8  PREFACE  BY  THE  AMERICAN   EDITOR 

long — a  plateau  where  the  march  will  go  forward 
through  many  happy  centuries.  When  the  edge  of 
that  plateau  has  been  really  overpast,  and  when,  as 
Monod  has  well  said,  the  true  human  life  begins,  all  the 
thoughtful  of  that  generation  will  pause  and  they  will 
look  back  and  down  the  way  the  race  has  climbed. 
They  will  study  the  various  movements  and  parties  of 
the  latest  centuries;  and  they  may  find  that  the  sole 
movement  which  in  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth  cen- 
turies had  clearly  avowed  and  passionately  sought  that 
universal  co-operation  which  actually  became  the  state 
attained  by  the  race,  was  itself  a  compelling  factor  in 
the  process  of  attainment.  They  may  find,  that  is,  that 
the  Socialism  of  our  day  was  the  sharpest  and  most 
effective  agency  in  bringing  in  the  solution,  the  final 
commonwealth. 

And  when  they  consider  the  religious  phase,  and  if 
it  shall  be  that  the  all-embracing  religion  is  identical 
with  a  purified  socially- ethical  Christianity,  they  may 
find  that  the  most  pronounced  form  of  such  a  Chris- 
tianity in  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries  was  an 
ally  needed  by  Socialism,  and  vitally  serving  Socialism. 
These  are  surely  both  likely  guesses ;  and  if  they  are 
true  guesses,  then  it  follows  with  certainty  that  the 
thoughtful  of  that  soberly  happy  generation  will  recog- 
nize as  a  most  weighty  event  of  these  years  now  pass- 
ing, the  discovery  now  passionately  hailed,  and  with 
widening  acceptance,  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  pro- 
claimed by  Jesus  and  the  Co-operative  Commonwealth 
foreseen  and  willed  by  the  Socialists,  are  one  and  the 
same.  The  pioneers  of  this  Great  Identification  will 
then  stand  out  as  the  true  leaders  of  men,  however 


PREFACE  BY  THE  AMERICAN   EDITOR  9 

little   the  mass  may  now  perceive  them  to  be   their 
leaders. 

The  early  discoverers  of  the  identification, 
whether  in  France  or  England  or  this  country,  went 
no  further  than  to  identify  two  abstractions,  two 
pictures  of  the  future;  they  expressly  disowned  the 
actual  Socialists  of  the  Continent,  rebuked  their  athe- 
ism and  bitterness,  and  proposed  to  the  Christian  world 
a  rival  program,  named  "Christian  Socialism,"  and  to 
their  mind  altogether  lovely  and  of  good  report.  Such 
an  identification  was  courageous,  but  not  thorough ; 
and  it  could  not  be  ultimately  satisfactory  to  the  Ger- 
man mind,  whose  very  stamp  is  "thorough" ;  the  Ger- 
man mind  was  sure  sooner  or  later  to  see  deeper,  to  see 
through  the  contradictions  of  the  Social  Democracy  to 
Christianity.  It  has  done  so  and  has  proclaimed  the 
essential  oneness  of  the  actual  Socialist  movement  of 
the  nineteenth  century  with  that  movement  which  Jesus 
meant  to  found.  Not  that  so  wonderful  an  act  of  in- 
sight was  shared  by  any  considerable  number  of  ob- 
servers among  German  Christians ;  it  required  a  heroic 
quality  both  of  mind  and  of  heart  such  as  there  are 
few  instances  of  in  any  generation.  The  first  open  and 
widely  published  proclamation  of  this  identification 
was  the  book,  "They  Must,  a  Frank  Word  to  Christian 
Men  and  Women,"  now  offered  to  American  readers. 
Its  author,  Hermann  Kutter,  is  of  the  German  race,  a 
Swiss  pastor,  45  years  of  age,  an  orthodox  member  of 
the  Protestant  Church.  Until  the  year  1898  he  was 
pastor  of  a  small  church  near  Berne ;  in  that  year  he 
was  elected  by  the  people  of  one  of  the  districts  of 
Zurich  to  be  minister  of  their  church.     Zurich  is  a 


IO  PREFACE  BY  THE  AMERICAN   EDITOR 

place  of  great  intellectual  and  social  activity,  where 
the  proletariat  is  especially  strong.  Kutter,  who  had 
already  studied  the  social  question  with  ardor,  was 
here  soon  convinced  of  the  inherent  opposition  of 
official  Christianity  to  the  requirements  of  the  Gospel. 
After  many  internal  struggles,  and  against  opposition, 
he  was  led  to  judge  and  declare  that  the  Church,  which 
God  has  entrusted  with  the  highest  duty  to  mankind, 
had,  through  faithlessness  and  worldliness,  failed  in 
her  duty  to  make  valid  the  Gospel  of  the  living  God. 
The  Gospel  is  not  only  a  means  of  salvation  for  the 
future  life,  but  it  is  the  message  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  for  whose  coming  Jesus  taught  us  to  pray.  God 
knows  no  distinction  between  internal  and  external 
questions — questions  of  piety  and  questions  of  eco- 
nomics ;  but  from  His  spiritual  treasury  go  forth  His 
world-subduing  forces,  like  those  of  a  tree,  which 
grows  from  the  inside  to  the  outside,  and  to  these 
forces  all  conditions  must  submit.  God  is  a  God  of 
progress,  and  brings  His  Kingdom  to  realization,  not 
only  through  those  who  acknowledge  Him,  but  also 
through  those  who,  holding  aloof  from  all  relation  to 
the  Church,  keep  their  hearts  open  to  truth.  Such 
thoughts  as  these,  boldly  uttered  forth  by  Kutter  from 
his  pulpit,  aroused  great  attention.  Those  who  had 
first  elected  him  for  the  most  part  deserted  him,  but  in 
their  place  great  numbers  who  had  never  cared  for  the 
Church,  especially  the  mass  of  the  "lower  classes," 
flocked  about  him.  It  appears  that  a  minister  in 
Switzerland  is,  in  a  sense,  a  state  official,  being  elected 
for  a  term  of  six  years  by  the  citizens  of  the  district 
where  the  church  is  situated.     In  1904,  when  Kutter 


PREFACE  BY  THE  AMERICAN   EDITOR  II 

stood  for  a  second  election,  the  orthodox  voted  against 
him,  their  own  co-religionist,  who  still  remained  frank- 
ly orthodox ;  whereas  Atheists  and  unbelievers,  Demo- 
crats and  Socialists  gave  him  their  votes  to  an  over- 
whelming majority. 

Religiously  and  theologically  Kutter  is  orthodox — a 
theist  of  the  theists — a  Christian  of  the  Christians.  It 
is  his  very  ardent  devotion  to  the  church  which  makes 
him  her  unsparing  critic — he  wants  to  see  the  temple 
cleansed  because  he  loves  the  temple  so  well.  "Faithful 
are  the  wounds  of  a  friend,"  and  such  are  those  he  in- 
flicts upon  the  church ;  he  is  a  surgeon  with  a  lancet, 
not  a  foe  with  a  rapier. 

In  these  modern  days  of  enlightenment  such  criticism 
of  the  church  offered  from  within,  and  by  men  who 
abhor  schism  and  heresy,  is  hospitably  received  in  the 
church  itself,  and  is  recognized  as  wholesome  even  by 
many  who  would  qualify  its  terms.  The  case  has  to  be 
stated  strongly,  to  be  taken  in  at  all ;  but  the  extreme 
statements  do  not  offend,  since  the  loyal  spirit  back  of 
them  is  felt. 

It  was  necessary  that  Kutter  should  point  out  the 
failure  of  those  German  Christians  who  went  into  the 
" christlich-sosial"  movement  to  grasp  the  true  meaning 
of  the  Social  Democracy  which  they  antagonized.  It 
is  also  necessary  here  in  America  that  the  anti-Social- 
ist social  reformers  should  be  shown  in  the  true  light, 
as  hinderers,  unwitting  though  they  may  be,  of  the  real 
movement  of  Divine  Providence  in  the  masses  to-day. 
The  Social  Democracy  in  Germany  is  not  an  atheist 
party;  there  as  here  religious  belief  is  proclaimed  by 
the  highest  assembly  of  the  party  to  be  the  affair  of 


12  PREFACE  BY  THE  AMERICAN   EDITOR 

each  man  for  himself.  Still  it  is  true  that  many  Ger- 
man Socialists,  many  of  the  most  representative,  avow 
themselves  atheists ;  and  this  is  what  furnishes  the  anti- 
Socialist  Christians  of  Germany  their  ground  for  con- 
demning the  Social  Democracy.  Kutter's  marvelous 
insight  sees,  and  his  powerful  speech  shows,  that  this 
atheism  is  but  skin-deep ;  that  it  is  only  of  the  formal 
intellect,  not  of  the  spirit;  that  indeed  the  spirit  of  the 
Social  Democracy  is  of  that  fiery  fidelity  and  certainty 
which  are  the  substance  of  faith  in  God ;  furthermore, 
that  the  real  atheism,  the  atheism  of  the  spirit,  is  on  the 
other  side,  among  the  faithless  Christians  who  do  not 
recognize  the  hand  of  the  Ancient  of  Days  in  the  move- 
ment which  embodies  His  will  to-day.  And  even  this 
practical  atheism  in  the  Church  Kutter  points  out  only 
to  the  end  that  the  Church  may  see  it  herself,  and 
judge  herself  of  it,  and  stand  forth  glorious  once  more 
as  the  defender  of  human  welfare  and  progress. 

Reading  the  pages  of  "They  Must''  there  comes 
out  a  picture  of  the  Social  Democracy  as  our  author 
sees  it,  a  picture  drawn  in  Kutter's  vivid  way — a  dash 
here  and  a  dash  there.  This  picture  may  be  a  little 
heightened  by  adding  a  touch  or  two  to  bring  out  the 
definite  good  things  already  achieved  by  the  Social 
Democratic  movement  in  Germany;  for  its  benefits  to 
the  working  class  are  not  all  in  the  future,  some  have 
already  been  realized.  There  is  first  the  mental  and 
spiritual  uplift  of  the  association  itself;  the  expansion 
of  the  soul  which  comes  from  feeling  oneself  a  part  of 
a  grand  world-movement;  the  immense  enlarging  of 
the  mind's  horizon ;  the  perpetual  interest  in  wide  af- 
fairs which  active  membership  in  the  party  excites  and 


PREFACE  BY  THE  AMERICAN   EDITOR  1 3 

keeps  alive.  Then  there  is  the  powerful  impetus  which 
the  Social  Democratic  movement  has  given  and  is  giv- 
ing to  the  trade  union  and  co-operative  movements  in 
Germany.  The  comradeship  and  discipline  which 
working  men  find  in  the  party  predispose  them  to  close 
and  abiding  fellowship  in  those  other  lines  of  activity 
which,  through  faithful  united  effort,  become  so  profit- 
able. Furthermore,  and  more  substantial  and  measur- 
able perhaps,  there  is  the  effect  of  the  Social  Demo- 
cratic party  on  legislation.  Germany  is  far  in  advance 
of  the  other  countries  in  its  social  laws,  and  this  is  due 
to  two  causes — the  early  and  powerful  development  of 
the  Social  Democratic  party,  and  the  genius  of  Bis- 
marck which  saw  that  something  substantial  must  be 
done  by  the  government  for  the  working  class,  that 
some  effort  must  be  made  to  steal  the  Socialist  thun- 
der. The  system  of  compulsory  insurance  established 
by  Bismarck  in  1881  was  a  great  and  beneficial  inno- 
vation ;  it  has  furthermore  been  since  improved  from 
time  to  time,  in  several  points,  on  the  initiative  of  the 
Social  Democratic  members  of  the  Reichstag.  This 
system  covers  all  the  wage-earners  in  the  Empire,  mak- 
ing provision  for  those  who  become  disabled  through 
sickness,  accident  or  old  age,  and  also  for  the  widows 
and  orphans  of  workingmen  dying.  The  provision  is 
of  course  not  adequate,  but  it  is  vastly  better  than  any- 
thing yet  established  in  other  countries ;  and  it  never 
would  have  been  thought  of  but  for  the  Social  Democ- 
racy. 

"They  Must"  has  been  translated  into  Dutch  and 
into  French,  and  has  been  published  in  those  languages. 
In  editing  the  present  English  text,  I  have  had  the 


14  PREFACE  BY  THE  AMERICAN   EDITOR 

benefit  of  comparing  with  the  manuscript  of  an  in- 
dependent translation  made  by  Mr.  Richard  Heath  of 
England,  kindly  lent  by  him.  There  is  something 
peculiarly  noble  and  inspiring  in  the  Socialist  cause  in 
that  it  gives  birth  to  a  true  cosmopolitan  union,  in 
which  comrades  clasp  hands  with  comrades  around  the 
world  with  perfect  indifference  to  race,  nationality,  or 
language ;  and  this  book  is  put  forth  here  in  the  hope 
that  it  will  help  to  deepen  and  widen  this  current  of 
united  life  among  the  peoples. 

Rufus  W.  Weeks. 
New  York,  June,  1908. 


AUTHOR'S  ADDRESS  TO  AMERICAN  READERS 

To  American  readers  of  "They  Must,"  who  may 
not  be  familiar  with  recent  socio-political  history  in 
Germany,  and  to  whom  therefore  the  earlier  pages  of 
my  work  may  be  obscure,  I  offer  the  following  explana- 
tions : 

The  Christian  Socialist  movement  in  America  is  an 
entirely  different  thing  from  what  is  called  the  Chris- 
tian Social  movement  in  the  Germanic  countries;  and 
it  is  from  the  latter  that  my  book  takes  its  starting 
point.  In  America  at  the  present  time  a  Christian  So- 
cialist movement  is  arising,  almost  entirely  as  a  result 
of  two  causes :  on  the  one  hand,  an  enormous  capital- 
ism, concentrated  in  a  few  holdings  of  staggering 
amount,  the  perniciousness  of  which  is  apparent  to  all ; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  a  young  and  energetic  Chris- 
tianity, able  to  act  on  its  own  impulses,  not  controlled 
either  by  state  or  by  society.  This  Christian  Socialist 
movement  seems  parallel  with  the  political  Socialist 
movement,  and  fairly  in  unison  with  it,  since  what  is 
common  to  the  two  is  much  more  important  and  much 
more  prized  by  the  adherents  of  the  two  than  any  dif- 
ferences. 

In  Germany  the  case  is  quite  different.  When  So- 
cialism first  came  to  the  fore,  capitalism  was  still  in 
its  earlier  stage,  the  process  of  concentration  was 
hardly  begun ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  Christianity,  be- 
ing the  state  religion,  was  so  fettered  and  bound  that 


l6  AUTHOR'S  ADDRESS  TO  AMERICAN  READERS 

it  could  not  get  its  mind  at  all  clear  upon  its  original 
essence, — its  original  revolutionary  hostility  to  the 
spirit  of  the  world.  Thus  we  had  a  weak  capitalism 
and  a  weak  Christianity;  but,  over  against  them,  a 
strong  Social  Democracy,  holding  fast  to  a  philosophic 
doctrinairism  which  the  giant  mind  of  Marx  had  car- 
ried to  an  extreme  height.  This  doctrinairism  gave  the 
whole  Socialist  movement  from  the  start  an  impulse 
towards  the  field  of  theory — and,  in  the  field  of  theory, 
propositions  put  forth  challenge,  naturally  and  inevi- 
tably, the  putting  forth  of  denials. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  German  mind  has 
a  certain  fondness  for  emphasizing  contrasts  of  idea, 
for  building  up  parties  on  such  contrasts,  and  so  for 
giving  to  abstractions  too  much  weight,  to  the  injury 
of  the  concrete  affair  in  hand.  It  will  therefore  seem 
not  unnatural  that  the  Evangelical  Social  movement  in 
Germany  asserted  itself  from  the  beginning  as  the  op- 
ponent of  the  Social  Democracy — even  claimed  such 
opposition  as  its  chief  reason  for  being.  The  compre- 
hensionist  view-point,  which  is  able  even  to  embrace 
the  irreligious  Social  Democracy  in  the  cause  of  the 
urgent  postulates  common  to  the  two — such  a  view- 
point as  can  be  taken  now-a-days  and  is  exemplified  in 
my  book — such  a  view-point  as  in  America  was  natural 
from  the  beginning — was  unthinkable  by  the  founders 
of  the  German  Christian  Social  movement. 

These  leaders  placed  their  movement  at  the  outset 
in  deliberate  opposition  to  the  Social  Democracy ;  and, 
although  this  is  easily  comprehensible  under  the  condi- 
tions above  explained,  it  was  nevertheless  a  sad  and 
fatal  error ;  it  took  away  from  Christianity  its  quality 


AUTHOR'S  ADDRESS  TO  AMERICAN  READERS  17 

of  comprehensiveness,  and  degraded  it  to  the  stock-in- 
trade  of  a  faction.  I  will  touch  briefly  on  these  transac- 
tions, referring  particularly  to  two  men  who  are  re- 
peatedly mentioned  in  my  book — Stoecker  and  Nau- 
mann — and  leaving  out  of  view  others  who,  like 
Nathusius,  played  no  considerable  part. 

The  idea  of  a  socially  active  Christianity,  a  Chris- 
tianity aimed  at  conditions  as  well  as  at  hearts,  had 
long  been  discussed  and  vigorously  maintained  by 
Wichern,  the  father  of  city  missions,  and  by  other  men 
inspired  and  aroused  by  the  Gospel ;  but  it  was  Court 
Chaplain  Adolf  Stoecker  who  first  gave  solid  form  to 
such  an  idea.  He  did  this  by  calling  into  life — after 
a  memorable  discussion  with  the  leaders  of  the  Social 
Democracy  in  the  "Eiskeller"  in  Berlin — a  Christian 
Labor  Party.  But  the  expected  working-class  contin- 
gent stayed  outside,  and  it  shortly  became  manifest  that 
the  newly  formed  party  was  little  else  than  a  middle- 
class  faction,  without  real  conscious  aim  or  program. 
Ultimately  it  allowed  itself  to  be  taken  in  tow  by  the 
principal  Conservative  Party,  ceasing  to  be  a  labor 
party  in  any  real  sense;  then  it  no  longer  called  itself 
the  Christian  Social  Labor  Party,  but  merely  the 
Christian  Social  Party.  It  lost  all  influence  with  the 
masses  of  the  working  class,  and  finally  from  the  year 
1890,  merged  into  the  Evangelical  Social  Congress, 
which,  though  often  bringing  out  excellent  productions 
among  its  papers,  has  never  resulted  in  any  action 
worth  mention  on  behalf  of  the  suffering  masses. 

Besides  the  groups  organized  by  Stoecker,  there  had 
been  an  independent  development  of  other  groups  of 
Christian  laborers  called  Evangelical  Labor  Associa- 


l8  AUTHOR'S  ADDRESS  TO  AMERICAN  READERS 

tions;  these  associations,  however,  pursued  from  the 
start  only  religious  and  educational  aims.  From  these 
groups  graduated  that  man  who,  next  to  Stoecker, 
was  to  exert  the  greatest  influence  on  the  Christian 
Social  movement  of  Germany — Frederick  Naumann. 
This  man  took  up  Stoecker's  original  policy  with  en- 
thusiasm, as  Stoecker  himself  moved  away  from  it; 
and,  when  it  appeared  that  the  Evangelical  Labor  as- 
sociations were  in  danger  of  being  absorbed  by  the 
Stoecker  movement,  then  become  entirely  conservative, 
Naumann  led  many  of  the  associations  to  cut  loose  and 
adopt  a  new  program  under  the  name  of  National  So- 
cial. This  program  was  designed  expressly  to  meet  the 
needs  of  the  laborers,  and  was  meant  to  serve  as  the 
standard  for  a  new  social  movement.  These  associa- 
tions, thanks  to  the  brilliant  leadership  of  Naumann, 
were  very  flourishing  at  the  outset ;  but  they  did  not 
fulfil  that  early  promise.  Naumann  allowed  himself 
more  and  more  to  be  driven  over  into  the  camp  of 
political  liberalism ;  until,  as  a  liberal,  he  is  to-day  actu- 
ally found  approving  of  the  "embarrassment"  policy — 
equally  unworthy  and  impossible — of  Chancellor  von 
Buelow,  who  has  formed  a  coalition  of  the  Conserva- 
tives and  the  Liberals  against  the  Catholics  and  the 
Social  Democrats.  Naumann  has  also  come  to  be  a 
champion  of  the  world-power  policy  of  the  German 
government,  and  has  given  up  in  despair  the  winning 
for  Christianity  of  any  other  than  strictly  moral  and 
religious  tasks.  The  Stoecker  party  and  the  Naumann 
party  are  now  out  of  the  game:  whatever  shape  or 
name  they  take,  "Christian  Social,"  "Evangelical  So- 


AUTHORS  ADDRESS  TO  AMERICAN  READERS  IO, 

cial,"  or  "National  Social,"  they  spell  to-day  lifeless 
entities. 

How  came  this  about?  In  my  view,  as  suggested 
above,  from  the  error  that  both  Stoecker  and  Naumann 
made  in  emphasizing  the  antithesis  of  their  movement 
to  the  Social  Democracy,  at  the  expense  of  what  was 
in  common.  Their  chief  purpose  in  founding  their 
several  Christian  labor  parties  was  to  check  the  rapid 
growth  of  the  Social  Democracy;  and,  therefore,  even 
if  they  placed  social  aims  in  the  foreground,  still  those 
aims  could  not  obtain  a  clear  and  definite  expression, 
or  impress  themselves  as  of  weighty  import.  The 
Evangelical  Socials  never  perceived  that  the  oneness 
of  the  social  needs  and  tasks  of  the  working  class  is 
fatal  to  any  cleavage  on  religious  or  national  lines. 
Wrapped  up  in  their  religious  prejudices,  and  alarmed 
by  the  radicalism  of  the  leaders  of  the  Social  Democ- 
racy, they  did  not  recognize  the  providential  impor- 
tance of  that  rising  movement ;  and  they  never  saw 
deep  enough  to  discover  the  elementary  truth  that  the 
Social  Democracy,  in  spite  of  all  its  one-sidedness,  is, 
in  its  essentials,  simply  right.  They  did  not  permit 
themselves  to  be  enough  penetrated  by  the  great  notion 
of  Justice,  as  a  ray  emanating  from  the  very  life  of 
God,  not  concerned  about  religious  tenets  and  dogmas ; 
uniting  all  its  devotees,  however  they  may  differ 
in  theories,  in  the  cause  of  the  one  deed;  and,  for  the 
sake  of  the  great  common  good,  burying  the  differences 
bequeathed  by  a  moribund  civilization  under  the  living 
demands  of  justice. 

In  opposition  to  all  this,  it  was  my  idea  in  "They 
Must"  to  place  in  relief  the  divine  justification  of  the 


20  AUTHOR'S  ADDRESS  TO  AMERICAN   READERS 

Social  Democracy.  On  the  surface  the  book  may  seem 
little  else  than  a  panegyric  of  the  Social  Democracy  as 
a  political  party,  but  at  bottom  it  is  something  else 
than  that.  My  interest  was  not  in  the  Social  Demo- 
cratic party;  in  fact  I  do  not  myself  belong  to  that 
party  ;*  my  interest  was  in  the  great  idea  of  social  just- 
ice which  is  proclaimed  by  the  Gospel  and  which  I  saw 
more  clearly  expressed  through  even  the  errors  of  that 
party  than  through  the  vague  programs  of  the  Chris- 
tian Social  movement.  I  spoke  for  the  Social  Democ- 
racy because  the  others  had  spoken  against  it;  with- 
out concealing  from  myself  what  is  clearly  expressed 
in  the  book — how  far  even  the  Social  Democracy  is 
from  attaining  the  great  i'deal  which  it  has  set  itself. 

But  all  this  is  beside  the  real  matter.  At  bottom 
the  question  is  not  of  dogma,  whether  Social  Demo- 
cratic or  Christian;  not  of  fixed  tenets  of  world  phi- 
losophy ;  not  of  party  maxims  and  symbols ;  but  of  the 
fact  that  the  living  God  Himself  is  manifesting  His 
Kingdom  in  the  social  movement  which  is  to-day  per- 
meating the  whole  world,  and  which  finds  its  most  im- 
posing expression  in  the  German  Social  Democracy; 
and  that  thus  it  is  God  Himself  who  is  carrying  the 
Gospel  of  His  Son  to  victory  throughout  all  the  old 
structures  of  civilization. 

To  set  forth  this  truth  I  wrote  "They  Must."  An 
auxiliary  inducement  was  the  fact  that  here  in  Switzer- 
land the  idea  that  the  social  question  is  of  the  utmost 
consequence,  and  that  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  itself  justi- 


*Dr.  Kutter  votes  the  Social  Democratic  ticket,  but  does 
not  belong  to  a  Socialist  local — a  distinction  clear  only  to 
those  who  understand  Socialist  methods. 


AUTHORS  ADDRESS  TO  AMERICAN  READERS  21 

fies  such  a  revolution  of  our  present  economic  system 
as  will  establish  a  just  distribution  of  the  products  of 
labor,  is  spreading  among  ministers  of  the  Gospel  as 
well  as  in  wider  circles.  A  new  group  is  forming 
among  us,  calling  itself  neither  Christian  Social  nor 
Evangelical  Social,  but  "Religious  Social" — a  name 
meant  to  show  that  this  new  group  knows  how  to 
unite  the  radicalism  of  the  Social  Democratic  belief 
with  a  warm  and  enthusiastic  religious  devotion.  It  is 
coming  to  be  better  and  better  understood  among  us 
that  old  watchwords — such  as,  conservative,  radical, 
orthodox,  liberal — have  lost  their  meaning.  A  new 
spirit,  the  spirit  of  truth  and  life,  permeates  and  unites 
the  hearts  of  men  and  women,  who  heretofore  have 
called  themselves  by  differing  names.  It  is  beginning 
to  be  understood  that  true  Christianity  is  not  hostile  to 
any  movement  which  serves  the  well-being  of  man- 
kind ;  that,  on  the  contrary,  by  virtue  of  its  inclusive- 
ness,  its  being  God's  own  life  in  the  hearts  of  men,  it 
has  power  to  turn  everything  for  the  best — even  such 
elements  as  the  atheism  and  materialism  of  the  Social 
Democracy,  which  seem  to  be  exact  opposites  to  the 
Gospel.  The  Spirit  of  God,  whose  express  purpose  is 
to  bring  creation,  corrupted  by  sin,  back  under  the 
sway  of  justice  and  love,  makes  us  glad  and  strong,  so 
that  we,  for  the  sake  of  the  great  common  goal,  are 
able  without  hesitation  to  walk  hand  in  hand  with  the 
Social  Democracy. 

In  America  conditions  are  much  more  favorable  to 
such  a  movement,  since  the  Social  Democracy  there  has 
devoted  itself  more  to  questions  of  action  and  less  to 
mere  abstract  antitheses ;  and  we  rejoice  that  with  you 


22  AUTHOR  S  ADDRESS  TO  AMERICAN  READERS 

there  already  flourishes  a  Christian  Socialist  move- 
ment corresponding  so  closely  with  that  which  is  now 
making  its  way  with  us  upon  the  clear  showing  that 
the  earlier  attempts  of  a  Stoecker  and  a  Naumann, 
well-meant  as  they  were,  had  to  fail  and  that  the  only 
vital  Social  Christianity  is  that  which  can  take  up  into 
its  own  proclamation  the  radical  economic  postulates 
of  the  Social  Democracy.  Only  such  a  Social  Chris- 
tianity as  this  can  win  back  that  reverence  of  men  to 
the  Gospel,  which  has  been  lost  through  the  hostile  or 
indifferent  stand  taken  by  Christian  churches  and  par- 
ties toward  the  social  question. 

It  is  my  earnest  hope  that  my  book  may  help  some- 
what in  breaking  the  way  in  America,  hand  in  hand 
with  the  excellent  propaganda  of  the  Christian  Social- 
ist Fellowship,  for  the  original  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God.  God  bless  our  American  co-workers !  God 
bless  America ! 

Hermann  Kutter. 

Zurich,  Switzerland,  May,  1908. 


THEY  MUST 


CHAPTER  I. 

HOW  THE  BIBLE  SPEAKS  OF   GOD. 

Some  time  ago  the  author  had  a  conversation  with 
a  friend  on  the  subject  of  God.  After  we  had  dis- 
cussed the  usual  doubts  and  riddles,  she  made  the  fol- 
lowing remarkable  statement :  "It  is  clear  to  me  that 
God  exists,  but  for  all  that  so  many  things  are  dark 
that  I  can  never  find  peace  of  mind."  My  readers  will 
probably  find  nothing  strange  in  this  statement,  as  no 
doubt  many  of  them  have  often  expressed  themselves 
in  the  same  way.  Nevertheless  the  statement  is  a 
strange  one,  as  we  shall  see  if  we  appeal  to  the  classic 
document  of  our  faith,  the  Bible.  Christians  do  ap- 
peal to  the  Bible.     What  then  does  it  say  of  God? 

Let  no  one  fear  that  I  am  going  to  lose  myself  here 
in  the  manifold  intricacies  of  this  question,  or  that  I 
am  concerned  to  write  anything  like  an  exhaustive 
biblical  theology.  The  Bible  itself  forbids  any  such 
thing.  The  Bible  is  simple  in  its  doctrine  of  God ;  it 
presupposes  His  existence  without  more  ado.  To  be 
sure,  it  speaks  of  Him  in  the  most  manifold  ways; 
now  describing  Him  in  His  exalted  being,  now  cele- 
brating His  power  through  the  praise  of  His  glorious 
works.  There  is  in  its  language  the  fullest  expression 
of  every  phase  of  our  relation  to  Him ;  the  exaltation 
in  the  thought  of  His  glory,  the  longing  for  His  pres- 


24  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

ence,  the  joy  in  His  possession,  and  the  anguish  of  the 
consciousness  of  His  absence.  Systems  of  philosophy 
may  be  evolved  from  its  pages  as  easily  as  the  com- 
monest spiritual  truths  of  experience.  Not  only  all 
theologies,  but  even  all  philosophies  have  claimed  to 
find  their  justification  in  the  Bible,  and  still  make  that 
claim.  Each  philosophical  or  theological  party  affirms 
on  the  authority  of  the  Bible  the  doctrinal  points  which 
its  opponent  rejects  on  the  same  authority.  All  of 
these  claim  to  understand  the  Bible,  but  none  of  them 
do  understand  it. 

The  Bible  is  not  understood  because  its  great  sim- 
plicity is  not  understood.  Men  think  that  they  are 
bound  to  hunt  everywhere  for  hidden  meanings  in  it 
and  to  bring  them  to  the  light,  while  they  constantly 
overlook  its  simple  purpose.  These  hidden  meanings 
are  really  in  the  imagination  of  the  reader  and  not  in 
the  simple  truth  of  the  Bible.  And  yet  that  simple 
truth  of  the  Bible  lies  so  close  at  hand  that  all  eyes 
may  see  it.  Wherein  does  it  lie  ?  Simply  in  this,  that 
the  Bible  says:  "God  lives."  Is  that  then  so  ordi- 
nary, so  self-evident  a  thing?  Yes,  so  ordinary  that 
nobody  has  yet  grasped  it;  so  self-evident  that  great 
and  small  alike  have  stumbled  over  it  as  over  a  heavy 
stone  in  the  way.  The  Bible  and  we  start  from  op- 
posite points.  We,  in  our  efforts,  our  morality,  our 
religion,  move  laboriously  toward  God;  the  Bible 
starts  with  God.  We  set  God  at  the  end  of  a  more  or 
less  complicated  thought  process;  the  Bible  unfolds  its 
ideas  from  his  existence.  For  us  there  are  all  sorts 
of  realities  besides  God,  often  very  unlovely  ones ;  for 
the  Bible  there  is  only  one  reality  that  matters — God. 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  25 

We  are  uncertain,  changing,  vacillating  between  trust 
and  doubt.  The  Bible  knows  only  of  trust,  of  that 
which  abides  and  is  because  it  is.  The  Bible  is  diamet- 
rically opposed  to  our  Christianity.  Where  it  says  Yes, 
we  say  No ;  and  where  it  denies,  we  cringe  and  whisper 
Yes.  ' 

A  tremendous  fact!  Let  us  come  nearer  to  its 
meaning. 

Considering  the  New  Testament  only,  we  find  that 
every  page  reveals  this  contrast  between  then  and  now. 
That  which  Christianity  has  said  and  done  is  not  to  be 
reconciled  with  what  Jesus  said  and  did.  "He  spoke 
with  authority  and  not  as  the  scribes."  The  people 
were  astounded  at  his  teaching.  His  greatness  did  not 
consist  in  the  fact  that  he  added  a  new  attainment, 
even  the  most  wonderful,  to  what  others  had  done  be- 
fore him.  He  did  not  develop  or  complete ;  he  set  an 
entirely  new  view  of  life  over  against  the  old. 

Men  have  lingered  too  long  over  his  casual  words 
and  imparted  a  dogmatic  meaning  to  them ;  the  old  er- 
ror of  human  thought  "making  systems  out  of  words" 
has  been  especially  baneful  here.  We  should  not  tarry 
over  his  single  utterances ;  but  should  first  of  all  seek 
to  grasp  his  personality  in  its  wholeness.  His  sayings 
on  particular  occasions  are  as  often  determined  by  the 
casual  environment  as  by  the  main  intent  of  his  spirit, 
and  may,  therefore,  be  neither  new  nor  striking.  If 
we  wish  to  know  what  he  really  was  we  must  take 
such  words  as  :  "I  do  not  mine  own  works  but  the 
works  of  the  Father  who  sent  me."  Or  again  the  first 
words  of  his  ministry :  "The  Kingdom  of  God  is  at 
hand."     In  such  sayings  as  these  lies  the  interpretation 


26  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

of  all  the  rest.  Jesus  did  not  lay  down  any  religious 
or  ethical  postulate  as  the  ground-thought  of  his  mis- 
sion. He  simply  maintained  that  what  he  did  was  the 
work  of  the  Father,  and  that  he  and  the  Father  were 
one.  What  we  have  in  the  person  of  Jesus  before  our 
eyes  is  the  experiencing  of  the  Father. 

This  experience  appears  to  us  so  simple  and  self- 
evident  only  because  we  are  no  longer  able  to  imagine 
it,  to  say  nothing  of  appropriating  it.  We  have  buried 
that  truth  under  the  dogmas,  ceremonies  and  creeds 
of  the  cumulative  centuries.  So  even  in  our  most 
earnest  moments  of  piety  we  are  doing  our  own  works 
and  not  the  works  of  God.  Our  very  religion  hinders 
us  from  seeing  that  there  is  a  living  God.  Our  religion 
furnishes  us  with  the  material  for  a  complicated  sys- 
tem of  opinions,  called  beliefs,  but  we  have  lost  all 
comprehension  of  the  endless  life  that  springs  from  re- 
ligion. In  a  word,  the  deep-seated  difference  between 
us  and  Jesus  lies  in  the  simple  fact  that  he  had  God 
and  we  have  not.  And  all  the  minor  details  of  con- 
trast between  us  and  Jesus,  and  which  the  opponents  of 
Christianity  can  so  readily  enumerate,  have  their  cause 
here.  With  Jesus  was  the  living  God ;  with  us  is  only 
the  idea  of  a  God. 

Why  did  Jesus  speak  the  wonderful  words  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount?  Because  he  had  the  Father. 
Why  do  we  fail  to  understand  them  ?  Because  we  have 
not  the  Father.  Or  perhaps  we  think  that  we  do  under- 
stand them.  If  so,  what  does  "poor  in  spirit"  mean  ?  Can 
these  words  be  understood  by  men  who  have  all  sorts 
of  goods  besides  God?  Is  not  the  poverty  of  spirit 
which  Jesus  speaks  of  the  lack  of  all  things  but  God? 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  2"J 

Does  our  Christianity  understand  anything  of  that? 
Or  what  is  the  significance  for  our  modern  Christianity, 
of  the  words,  "Blessed  are  they  that  hunger  and  thirst 
after  righteousness?"  Are  the  many  churches  and 
chapels  that  we  are  so  lavishly  building  a  sign  of 
hunger  for  righteousness?  Are  the  theological  con- 
troversies between  the  parties  of  Christendom  a  sign 
of  thirst  after  righteousness?  Or  again,  "Happy  are 
ye  when  men  shall  revile  you  for  my  sake."  Do  our 
pastors  and  preachers,  our  ecclesiastics,  from  the  pope 
down  to  the  humblest  village  minister,  give  the  impres- 
sion of  people  persecuted  for  Jesus'  sake  ?  They  may 
despise  and  persecute,  but  they  know  not  how  to  be 
despised  themselves.  Why?  Because  they  have  not 
the  living  God.  The  despised  of  all  people  to-day  are 
the  Social  Democrats.  I  am  tempted  to  believe  that 
there  is  to-day's  revelation  of  God. 

Where  among  Christians  is  the  saying  "Love  your 
enemies"  understood?  Who  heeds  the  mandate,  "Lay 
not  up  for  yourselves  treasures  upon  earth"  ?  or  "Take 
no  thought  for  the  morrow"  ?  Are  not  these  the  words 
of  a  great  and  mighty  past,  quite  out  of  keeping  with 
our  decorative  and  dwarfed  Christianity?  Is  not  the 
fact  that  we  practice  the  exact  opposite  of  them  a  sign 
of  our  godlessness?  The  man  who  has  God  loves  his 
enemies ;  it  is  impossible  to  possess  God  and  to  hate. 
The  man  who  has  God  does  not  lay  up  treasures  on 
earth ;  he  does  not  need  them.  He  is  living  in  an  end- 
less reality,  where  all  problems  and  temptations  are 
easily  met  and  solved ;  where  all  false  pride  and  all 
anxiety  for  the  needs  of  this  life  fall  away.  He  who 
has  God  worries  not,  simply  because  he  cannot  worry. 


28  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

There  are  no  questions,  no  uncertainties,  no  mysteries 
to  vex  his  soul,  any  more  than  they  could  trouble  the 
play  of  the  sunbeam.  All  is  play  because  there  is  only 
one  reality — God. 

There  was  where  Jesus  stood — and  where  we  do 
not  stand.  He  was  one  with  God — and  we  have  no 
God. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  possession  of  the 
living  God  affirms  only  one  side  of  life,  the  sunny, 
positive  side;  and  that  it  rejects  the  dark  side  of  life 
because  its  unfathomable  joy  in  existence  swallows  up 
the  gloom.  He  who  possesses  the  living  God  has  no 
anxieties  and  no  fears ;  he  sees  everything  on  its  bright 
side:  in  any  experience  of  life  what  is  true  is  of  God, 
and  what  is  false  is  of  his  own  folly.  Everything  has 
meaning  for  him,  because  everything  is  filled  with 
God.  He  hopes  all  things,  believes  all  things,  endures 
all  things,  because  he  lives  in  God. 

But  the  Christianity  of  to-day  comes  forward  and 
charges  the  Social  Democracy  with  godlessness.  How 
is  this? 

The  Social  Democrats  hunger  and  thirst  after 
righteous  conditions.  Is  that  godlessness?  The  So- 
cial Democrats  are  the  advocates  of  mercy.  And  shall 
they  not  then  obtain  mercy?  The  Social  Democrats 
hate  what  is  common,  base  and  greedy.  And  shall 
they  not  be  God's  children?  They  are  despised  and 
persecuted  on  all  sides.  And  shall  God  condemn  them 
to  hell?  They  lay  up  for  themselves  no  treasures  on 
earth,  and  declare  war  on  money-getting.  And  shall 
they  not  belong  to  God  ?  They  do  what  God  from  the 
beginning  has  demanded  of  his  witnesses;  they  open 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  20, 

their  whole  hearts  to  the  poor  and  the  oppressed.  And 
shall  they  be  without  God? 

Of  a  truth,  there  is  nothing  that  shows  up  the 
present  godlessness  of  Christendom  so  clearly  as  this 
reproach  which  the  Christians  throw  in  the  face  of  the 
Social  Democrats.  Christianity  has  lived  its  self-satis- 
fied life  from  century  to  century,  without  bothering 
itself  about  the  poor,  otherwise  than  to  throw  them 
the  hard  bread  of  alms.  It  hardly  thinks  of  the  com- 
mands of  the  Gospel  on  its  every  page  to  dispel  the 
power  of  evil  and  sin.  It  serves  God  with  all  possible 
pious  anxiety  for  salvation,  but  it  forgets  from  age  to 
age  that  God  recognizes  true  service  only  in  conquer- 
ing evil  and  in  loving  the  poor  and  lowly.  It  dreams 
its  sweet  dreams  over  its  dogmas  and  ceremonies — and 
lo,  when  God  awakes  it  through  the  thunder  of  the 
social  revolution,  the  first  word  that  Christianity  can 
murmur  through  its  sleepy  lips  is — "godlessness" ! 

What !  a  movement  that  bears  the  seal  of  the  living 
God  so  clearly  on  its  forehead,  that  takes  so  earnestly 
and  literally  those  ideas  that  are  the  commands  of  His 
word,  that  proclaims  itself  so  unmistakably  the  foe  of 
His  great  foe,  Mammon — this  movement  called  god- 
less by  the  champions  of  the  Christian  faith? 

Is  it  not  clear  that  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed  be- 
tween such  a  kind  of  faith  and  God? 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  3 1 


CHAPTER  II. 
"the  social  democracy  denies  the    EXISTENCE    OF 

GOD." 

We  must  now  vindicate  the  truth  of  the  assertions 
contained  in  the  preceding  pages.  To  that  end  let  us 
consider  first  the  reproach  that  the  Social  Democracy- 
denies  the  existence  of  God. 


There  is  no  need,  says  society,  to  prove  the  godless- 
ness  of  the  Social  Democrats.  They  confess  it  in  plain 
words.  If  there  is  any  fact  that  is  certain  about  the 
Social  Democrats  it  is  that  they  glory  in  their  god- 
lessness. 

We  have  no  intention  of  combatting  this  state- 
ment. We  shall  even  spare  ourselves  the  trouble  of 
examining  the  passages  bearing  on  the  subject  in  the 
Social  Democratic  literature.  Every  one  who  knows 
these  writings,  even  superficially,  has  seen  that  they 
are  filled  with  this  spirit.  Yes,  the  Social  Democracy 
denies  God.  Of  that  we  have  never  had  a  doubt. 
We  only  ask:  Does  God  really  not  exist  because  the 
Social  Democracy  denies  His  existence,  or  has  the 
denial  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  existence  of 
God?  That  is  the  question  that  we  should  like  to 
address  to  the  mind  of  Christendom.  And  to  make 
the  question  complete,  we  also  add:  Does  God  really 
exist  because  the  Christians  acknowledge  Him,  or 
does  this  acknowledgment  have  nothing  to  do  with 


32  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

His  existence?  To  be  sure,  both  questions  are  equally 
foolish.  But,  unfortunately,  these  questions,  despite 
their  folly,  are  still  necessary.  It  is  evident  that 
neither  the  denial  nor  the  affirmation  of  God's  exist- 
ence conditions  the  fact  of  that  existence.  God  is  what 
He  is.  Assertions,  views,  standpoints,  systems  of 
faith,  all  can  and  do  contradict  one  another.  Ideas  may 
exclude  other  ideas ;  but  they  can  not  exclude  realities. 
That  which  is  does  not  any  the  less  exist  because  we 
attempt  to  deny  its  existence. 

The  foregoing  is  very  evident;  but  it  is  not  so 
evident  to  our  Christianity  that  certain  consequences 
proceed  therefrom.  It  is  possible  that  Christendom 
is  filled  with  God  in  speaking  its  reproach  against 
the  Social  Democracy;  and  it  is  also  possible  that  it 
is  only  speaking  in  defence  of  its  own  belief  in  God. 
Either  God  is  speaking  through  the  mouths  of  these 
men,  or  else  the  subject  of  their  speech  is  themselves, 
their  own  belief  in  God.  These  are  very  different 
things,  as  different  as  God  and  man.  In  proof  of 
this  fact,  which  is  so  grudgingly  conceded,  if  at  all, 
let  us  turn  for  a  moment  to  the  history  of  the  Church. 
From  the  very  earliest  days  of  the  consolidation  of 
the  Catholic  Church  it  was  the  custom  of  her  heads 
and  leaders  to  claim  for  their  words  and  works  the 
authority  of  the  living  God.  Every  dogma  and  every 
ceremony  owed  both  its  rise  and  its  efficacy  to  the 
spirit  of  God  alone.  Even  to-day  the  most  imposing 
party  of  Christendom,  the  Romish,  holds  to  this  view. 
And  in  the  Protestant  Church  as  well,  there  are  mem- 
bers who  declare  that  they  are  compelled  to  hold  their 
faith  in  the  evangelical  creed  in  the  same  way.     We 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  33 

shall  hardly  go  astray  then  in  asserting  that  the  Church 
has  always  viewed  as  the  word  and  deed  of  God,  or 
at  least  as  proceeding  immediately  from  His  will,  the 
things  it  has  said  and  done  really  of  its  own  impulse. 
The  question  is:  Has  God  ever  cared  at  all  about 
such  claims?  With  awful  anathemas  the  sister 
churches  of  Greece  and  Rome  separated  from  each 
other,  each  stoutly  maintaining  that  it  alone  had  the 
truth  and  that  its  unfortunate  sister  was  abandoned  by 
God.  Which  church  did  God  leave,  then,  the  Greek 
or  the  Roman?  Must  either  Byzantium  or  Rome  be 
damned?  And  then,  as  Rome  grew  stronger  and 
stronger  in  its  infallibility,  the  only  mediator  of  God's 
revelation  to  man,  was  it  a  blasphemous  act  for  the  Re- 
formers to  lay  violent  hands  on  this  glittering 
crown  of  infallibility?  They  were  consigned  to  the 
lowest  hell;  but  God  acknowledged  their  works  so 
clearly  that  to-day  there  are  many  sons  of  Rome  who 
confess  that  they  see  His  hand  in  the  mighty  revolu- 
tion of  the  human  spirit  which  separated  the  evan- 
gelical from  the  Roman  Church. 

And  if  to-day  a  great  party  declares  war  on  all 
religion,  shall  we,  in  the  light  of  the  teaching  of  the 
past,  see  in  this  only  a  sign  of  godlessness? 

Nay,  do  we  not  see  rather  that  God  and  Church, 
God  and  religion,  are  not  one  and  the  same  thing; 
that  the  living  God  forever  concerns  Himself  but  little 
with  the  dogmas  that  Christians  manufacture  about 
Him?  Numerous  already  are  the  dogmas  which  have 
been  imposed  in  the  name  of  His  holy  and  inviolable 
truth  and  under  pain  of  eternal  damnation,  but  which 
His  all-powerful  spirit  has  swept  away  like  the  straw 


34  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

before  the  wind.  The  lesson  of  history  is  that  there 
are  two  tendencies  in  the  course  of  events  to  be  kept 
carefully  distinct;  on  the  one  hand  there  are  systems 
of  faith  which  various  ages  have  set  up  as  unalterable 
norms  of  truth,  on  the  other  hand  there  is  the  unceas- 
ing stream  of  vital  development  which  now  sweeps 
away  with  violence  and  now  gently  undermines  the 
most  irreproachable  systems;  they  must  give  way  to 
the  higher  truth.  On  the  one  hand  is  man,  always 
anxious  to  write  eternities  on  the  sands  of  his  short 
existence;  on  the  other  hand  is  God  ever  wiping  out 
these  futile  lines,  and  so  leading  an  upward-striving 
humanity  along  the  way  to  the  eternal  verities.  It  is 
natural  and  in  accord  with  the  weakness  of  men  that 
they  should  be  found  on  the  first  side;  but  it  is  more 
in  accord  with  God's  nature  that  we  should  grasp  the 
truth  of  the  latter  side,  and  see  in  it  alone  the  power 
of  the  divine  will. 

Now  what  has  been  the  invariable  course  of  official 
Christianity?  It  has  at  every  decisive  moment  of  its 
development  set  dogma  and  ceremony  in  the  place  of 
God.  And  to-day  it  is  battling  hard,  at  least  in  its 
Protestant  branches,  to  rid  itself  of  the  consequences 
of  this  fatal  substitution.  But  still  it  does  not  dare 
to  look  the  living  God  in  the  face ;  it  still  confuses  re- 
ligion and  God,  opinion  and  inspiration,  belief  and 
life.  It  cannot  rid  itself  of  the  evil  past.  Therefore 
does  it  speak  so  glibly  of  the  godlessness  of  a  move- 
ment behind  which  stands  the  living  God. 

2. 

In  proof  of  what  has  been  said,  let  us  turn  to  the 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  35 

utterances  of  the  Christian  Social  Reform  party  of 
Germany.  This  party  does  not,  to  be  sure,  represent 
the  opinion  of  Christian  society  as  a  whole,  but  it  does 
represent  the  furthest  limit  to  which  any  fraction 
of  the  evangelical  Christendom  of  to-day  will  go  in 
approaching  the  Social  Democracy. 

I  have  before  me  those  famous  first  addresses 
which  Stoecker,  the  founder  of  the  Christian  Social 
Reform  party,  made  to  the  Social  Democratic  work- 
men. Throughout  their  pages  there  is  only  here  and 
there  the  slightest  recognition  of  what  the  Social 
Democracy  has  accomplished.  Instead,  there  is  a  mass 
of  dictums,  embodying  a  thorough  condemnation  of 
the  movement.  For  example :  "You  cannot  reach 
your  ideal  in  any  other  way  than  through  a  bloody 
revolution."  "When  a  man  offers  to  help  you  to  gain 
meliorations  you  scornfully  reject  such  help,  and 
declare  that  you  will  have  no  compromises.  You  will 
have  only  the  new  social  state;  thus  you  alienate  all 
other  men  from  you  and  your  hatred  spoils  every- 
thing." "Gentlemen,  you  hate  your  country,  you  hate 
Christianity,  the  gospel  of  the  grace  of  God."  "Yes, 
you  are  sailing  with  the  storm;  your  sails  are  red, 
and  the  name  of  your  ocean  is  blood."  Scattered  be- 
tween these  ejaculations  are  passages  in  praise  of 
Christianity,  and  at  the  end  comes  the  weak  conclusion : 
"We  cannot  promise  you  a  social  state  such  as  your 
agitators  promise,  but  we  know  your  needs  and  your 
cares ;  and  we  are  ready  to  do  everything  in  our  power, 
working  in  common  with  you,  to  improve  your  con- 
dition.    And  if  the  great  labor-party  consents  again 


36  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

to  live  in  peace  with  the  other  classes  of  society,  then 
the  help  will  be  easier  to  give  than  now." 

The  Christian  Social  Reform  party  is  a  child  of 
weakness  and  not  of  strength ;  it  is  a  manifestation  of 
unfaith  and  not  of  faith;  ill-considered  and  unjust. 
Let  us  show  this  briefly. 

The  same  Stoecker  who  comes  into  the  lists  so 
jauntily,  as  if  it  were  a  question  of  disciplining  a  few 
unruly  schoolboys,  says  in  his  speech  on  "A  Sketch 
for  the  Program  of  the  Christian  Social  Reform 
Party:"  "It  is  the  great  merit  of  Socialism  that  it 
has  called  our  attention  to  the  social  question,  that 
it  has  fixed  our  minds  during  the  last  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  more  and  more  on  social  conditions,  and  that 
it  has  made  every  honest  man  in  the  German  Empire 
ask  himself :  'What  can  be  done  to  help  the  laboring 
classes?' " 

How  unjust,  in  the  face  of  this  admission,  are  the 
terms  in  which  he  characterizes  the  Social  Democracy ! 
This  same  Church  that  allowed  itself  to  hear  from  the 
lips  of  one  of  its  most  renowned  and  gifted  servants 
the  frightful  reproach  that  it  was  only  through  the 
Social  Democracy  that  it  had  been  roused  to  some 
grasp  of  the  social  question — that  is  to  say,  to  recog- 
nizing the  fact  that  the  great  majority  of  the  people 
are  the  victims  of  an  open  system  of  robbery  at  the 
hands  of  the  upper  classes,  that  great  numbers  must 
beg  their  daily  bread,  that  immortal  human  beings 
(created  in  God's  image,  as  the  church  teaches)  are 
compelled  daily  to  expose  themselves  and  their  families 
to  humiliating  and  revolting  conditions  in  order  to  get 
bare    subsistence;    these    same    Christians,    I    say,    in 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  37 

whose  ears  the  misery  that  long  has  cried  to  heaven 
began  to  be  heard  only  a  poor  fifteen  or  twenty  years 
ago,  of  a  truth  had  every  reason  for  appearing  in  a 
humbler,  a  juster  and  a  kinder  guise  before  the  Social 
Democracy.  The  Church  should  have  said,  "We  are 
ashamed  that  these  men  have  had  to  show  us  our  neg- 
lected duty,  we  confess  our  great  fault,  and  we  hasten 
to  make  amends  for  the  guilty  past  by  saying  frankly, 
boldly  and  undeterred  by  the  consideration  of  the 
rich  and  the  powerful :  the  Social  Democracy  is 
right  in  its  demands  and  in  its  aims ;  though  it  may 
make  grave  mistakes,  its  purpose  is  the  purpose  of 
the  gospel — and  our  purpose  is  the  same." 

The  Christian  Social  Reform  party  did  not  so  speak. 
And  that  is  the  reason  why  it  remains  so  weak  and 
inefficient  to-day.  It  failed  in  its  first  step.  It  as- 
sumed the  tone  of  censure  and  not  the  tone  of  recogni- 
tion.   And  this  came  from  its  little  faith. 

It  was  lack  of  faith  that  painted  the  Social 
Democracy  as  a  red  spectre  of  revolution  on  the  cloudy 
horizon.  It  was  lack  of  faith  to  reproach  these  toiling 
and  oppressed  men,  abandoned  and  despised  by  the 
upper  classes  of  society,  with  godlessness,  and  so  to 
discredit  them  in  the  eyes  of  the  nation.  It  was  lack 
of  faith  to  confront  them  with  the  rash  words  which 
in  their  desperation  they  had  uttered  against  "tyrants" 
and  the  like.  It  was  lack  of  faith  to  say  to  them : 
You  are  the  lower  classes,  you  have  no  education,  you 
do  not  know  how  things  really  are.  Stoecker  forgot 
that  the  men  whom  he  was  opposing  were  poor  and 
unhappy,  unhappy  even  in  their  hatred,  unhappy  above 
all  because  while  they  had  the  sure  conviction  that 


3§  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

their  cause  was  great  and  true  it  met  only  with  hos- 
tility from  official  society.  It  is  lack  of  faith  to  fight 
the  Social  Democracy  with  the  weapons  of  Protestant 
Christianity,  instead  of  seeing  in  the  movement  the 
hand  of  the  living  God. 

Here  we  come  back  to  our  earlier  statement: 
there  are  two  powers  in  the  course  of  events — system 
and  progress.  System  stands  still;  progress  presses 
forward.  Even  Protestantism,  even  the  Protestant 
Giurch,  is  a  system  of  the  gospel  and  not  the  gospel 
itself.  Fortified  in  this  system  the  Christian  Social 
Reform  party  took  up  the  battle  against  the  Social 
Democrats.  The  party  forgot  that  above  all  systems 
rules  the  living  God.  They  beheld  the  Social  Demo- 
crats in  the  light  of  their  system  and  not  in  the  light 
of  the  living  God.  Hence  all  the  criticisms  of  the 
Social  Democracy — and  behind  the  criticisms  all  the 
fear  of  the  Social  Democracy.  Hence  also  the  cheap 
solution  of  all  problems  in  the  words,  "What  you  ask 
for  is  impossible" — and  behind  these  words,  terror. 


Yes,  the  evangelical  Church  has  forgotten  the 
living  God.  It  no  longer  knows  that  every  great 
movement  for  which  the  Bible  stands,  even  that  which 
called  the  Protestant  Church  itself  into  being,  has 
appeared  foolish,  impossible  and  blasphemous  in  the 
eyes  of  the  men  who  lived  side  by  side  with  the 
prophets  of  such  movement.  It  was  foolishness  in 
a  Moses  to  bid  defiance  to  the  powerful  Egyptian 
despot — but  to-day  the  children  of  the  Christian  Sun- 
day Schools  are  taught  that  his  deeds  were  the  deeds 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  39 

of  God.  It  was  an  "impossible"  undertaking  to  lead 
a  great  people  through  the  wilderness — but  all  sub- 
sequent generations  even  to  our  own  day  have  sung 
of  the  glory  of  this  ''impossible"  deed.  Could  there 
be  a  greater  piece  of  foolhardiness  than  Gideon's, 
when  he  led  his  three  hundred  to  attack  the  Midianites 
encamped  over  against  him  like  a  myriad  of  locusts? 
Yet  this  very  incident  is  held  up  to  the  tender  youth 
of  .our  land  as  example  of  a  shining  faith  in  God  !  The 
pretensions  of  a  David  were  rash,  foolish  and  god- 
less ;  the  preaching  of  an  Isaiah  was  blasphemous  in 
the  judgment  of  the  priests  and  the  pious ;  the  work  of 
a  Jeremiah  was  an  outrage  upon  a  menaced  father- 
land. The  prophets  of  Israel  were  all  revolutionary 
agitators  with  wild  and  dangerous  ideas — but  it  is 
just  these  men  who  are  now  held  up  to  us  as  exemplar 
champions  of  God.  Jesus  was  a  seducer  of  the  peo- 
ple, a  blasphemer,  a  friend  of  outcasts,  of  publicans 
and  sinners,  his  apostles  the  scum  of  society — but 
it  is  on  Jesus  and  the  Apostles  that  the  Christian 
Church  of  to-day  is  built.  And  what  shall  we  say 
of  Martin  Luther,  whom  his  contemporaries  from  the 
Kaiser  down  to  the  poorest  peasant  regarded  as  the 
prophet  of  Antichrist,  whose  ''soul-destroying"  works 
filled  the  world  with  horror?  To-day  this  same  Luther 
is  the  rock  and  the  refuge  of  a  mighty  Christian 
Church.  And  now  this  very  Church  which  itself  was 
born  of  the  "impossible"  raises  its  brazen  shield 
against  the  "impossibility"  of  a  new  and  great  move- 
ment, and  brands  it  with  the  reproach  of  "revolution- 
ary folly." 

Of  a  truth,  the  evangelical  Church  has  forgotten 


40  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

the  living  God !  It  has  forgotten  Him  in  that  it  can- 
not look  upon  the  strength  of  the  Social  Democracy 
without  immediately  belittling  it,  reducing  it  to  its 
own  spiritual  stature.  It  calls  the  Social  Democracy 
dangerous  because  the  Social  Democrats  do  not  share 
the  prejudices  of  the  evangelicals.  It  speaks  of  a 
great  abyss  into  which  the  Social  Democrats  are  push- 
ing the  intoxicated  masses,  because  the  Social  Demo- 
crats do  not  confess  the  Christianity  of  the  day.  It 
ceaselessly  celebrates  the  preserving  power  of  its  own 
faith,  without  which  every  social  movement  must  sink 
and  vanish  in  the  sands  of  time.  Meanwhile  the  Social 
Democracy  is  spreading  out  further  and  further,  and 
the  boasted  powers  of  the  Church  have  less  and  less 
opportunity  to  make  their  influence  felt.  The  Church 
boldly  asserts  that  it  alone  is  able  to  solve  the  social 
question,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  was  only  fifteen 
or  twenty  years  ago  that  it  began  to  perceive  that 
there  was  such  a  question.  The  Church  has  unbound- 
ed confidence  in  the  wholesome  effect  of  its  dogmas, 
and  forgets  that  from  the  very  beginning  of  its  official 
history  it  has  stood  in  the  way  of  progress,  that  it 
has  preached  fire  and  sword  against  every  movement 
that  has  run  contrary  to  its  own  interests.  The  Church 
imagines  that  it  can  dominate  this  new  movement  of 
the  spirit  of  men  by  virtue  of  its  overwhelming  power, 
as  if  the  witness  of  all  history  did  not  prove  the  ex- 
act opposite ;  but  it  does  not  seem  to  think  for  a  mo- 
ment of  beginning  with  itself  and  of  learning  a  new 
faith,  a  new  hope  and  a  new  labor.  It  speaks  as 
ever  of  salvation,  of  grace,  of  redemption  and  of 
judgment,  with  its  gaze  fixed  on  the  past.    It  confuses 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  41 

systems,  words,  views,  traditions  with  life.  It  is  un- 
concerned that  its  gospel  is  not  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ,  its  confession  not  filled  with  his  spirit,  its 
faith  a  dream,  and  no  longer  that  communion  with 
the  powers  of  eternity  in  which  a  Saint  Paul  found 
inspiration.  But  more  of  this  later.  For  the  present 
we  wish  simply  to  make  clear  what  effect  Christianity's 
confession  of  the  living  God  should  have  on  its  atti- 
tude toward  the  Social  Democracy. 

4- 

The  Social  Democracy  does  in  the  main  profess 
atheism.  It  declares  religion  a  matter  of  private  con- 
cern only.  It  does  not  believe  in  an  eternal  life.  It 
regards  Christianity  as  an  outgrown  faith.  Its  dogma 
is  materialism — materialistic  interpretation  of  past 
history  and  materialistic  postulates  for  the  present  and 
future. 

All  this  is  undeniable.  But  we  do  not  believe  that 
there  is  any  real  danger  for  mankind  in  all  this.  Over 
against  the  fears  of  good  Christian  souls  we  set  the 
single  fact  that  God  lives.  In  this  one  statement  we 
are  of  one  accord  with  their  creeds ;  we  simply  find 
that  ecclesiastical  Christianity  and  the  Gospel  draw 
different  conclusions  from  this  fact.  Ecclesiastical 
Christianity  concludes  from  God's  existence  the  ne- 
cessity of  pious  doctrines  and  of  artificial  morals  de- 
rived from  these  doctrines ;  the  Gospel  concludes  from 
the  existence  of  God  that  the  whole  world  belongs  to 
Him.  Christianity  excludes  the  world ;  the  Gospel 
includes  the  world.  For  Christianity  the  confession 
of  God  stands  at  the  end  of  a  long  and  labored  spir- 


42  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

itual  process  which  individuals  and  nations  alike  have 
to  pass  through;  for  the  Gospel  it  stands  as 
clear  as  the  light  of  heaven  above  all  processes  of 
development  and  all  differences  of  opinion.  The  Gos- 
pel says :  Ye  have  the  living  God ;  that  is  enough.  But 
for  Christianity  it  is  not  enough ;  not  enough  to  sat- 
isfy the  Christian's  ambition,  his  honor,  his  fears,, 
his  doubts,  his  little  faith  and  his  no-faith.  The 
Christian  must  invent  all  kinds  of  pious  works,  which 
indeed  may  be  inspired  by  the  Gospel,  but  which  are 
performed  in  the  spirit  of  self.  Therefore  do  we  say 
that  the  Christianity  of  to-day  has  lost  the  living  God. 

What  difference  does  it  make  to  him  who  pos- 
sesses the  reality,  God,  whether  the  Social  Democrats 
deny  God  or  not  ?  They  do  deny  Him,  to  be  sure ; 
they  often  do  it  in  rude  and  exasperating  fashion ;  they 
despise  the  Christians  and  ridicule  them.  But  how 
can  that  harm  men  who  have  the  living  God?  The 
Social  Democrats  maintain  that  they  have  no  need 
of  God.  Has  God  himself  then  need  of  thy  anxious, 
excited  aid,  O  Christianity?  Put  thyself  in  the  place 
of  God's  Being  and  see  how  petty,  how  ludicrously 
petty  this  denial  seems  to  thee  then.  "They  rail  at 
all  that  is  holy'" — but  thou  hast  the  living  God.  "They 
say,  There  is  no  God" — but  they  say  it  of  the  God 
who  pulsates  within  thy  breast.  "They  recognize 
only  matter" — but  thou  knowest  that  God  is  the  only 
reality.  Oh  let  them  talk,  let  them  rail,  thou  and  thy 
God  are  not  harmed  thereby.  Why  dost  thou  take 
them  so  earnestly?  There  is  but  one  thing  that  is 
real :  God.    Is  there  aught  beside  Him  to  fear  ? 

Dost  thou  not  see  that  all  that  men  can  say  is 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  43 

only  an  idle  dream  when  measured  against  the  reality 
which  thou  dost  know?  Good  and  evil,  light  and 
darkness,  wisdom  and  folly — are  these  and  the  like 
contradictions  to  be  compared  with  that  great  unity 
which  fills  thy  breast?  "The  Lord,"  says  the  second 
Psalm,  "laughs  at  them."  Why  then  shouldst  thou 
hide  thy  face  in  fear  and  trembling?  He  speaks  now 
and  then  a  word  with  his  adversaries,  and  in  His  own 
good  way  leads  them  to  the  sense  of  divine  majesty — 
but  thou  hast  no  faith,  no  power  except  to  tremblingly 
lisp  thy  feeble  fault-findings.  And  above  all  He  has 
pity  on  the  children  of  men:  "He  hath  not  dealt 
with  us  after  our  sins,  nor  rewarded  us  according 
to  our  iniquities."  Why  then  dost  thou  not  stretch 
out  thy  hand  to  the  "godless,"  and  see  rather  what 
they  have  of  good,  than  only  how  they  err?  Why,  O 
Christendom,  dost  thou  tremble  before  the  Social 
Democracy ;  why  do  its  victories  at  the  polls  rob  thee 
of  thy  sleep ;  why  do  ye  draw  together  factions  that 
hate  each  other  to  make  void  the  victories  of  the 
Social  Democracy  ?  We  have  already  said  it ;  Christen- 
dom lacks  the  living  God. 

Yes,  Christians,  even  the  evangelical  Christians, 
are  afraid  of  the  Social  Democrats.  For  what  other 
reason  are  the  Christian  Social  Reformers  busying 
themselves  so  earnestly  with  the  Social  Democratic 
program  (which  they  pronounce  "impossible")  rath- 
er than  admitting  the  fact  that  programs  do  not  sig- 
nify anything  at  all?  It  is  a  matter  of  indifference 
how  the  Social  Democrats  justify  their  postulates 
scientifically,  just  as  it  is  a  matter  of  indifference  to 


44  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

the  Kingdom  of  God  what  the  Christian  dogmatics 
are.  Dogmatics  here  and  dogmatics  there.  It  is  of  no 
consequence  to  us  what  they  think  of  the  future,  and 
the  main  thing  is  not  that  we  should  meet  their  thesis 
with  a  thesis  equally  well  grounded  in  science.  We 
have  made  but  little  progress  when  we  have  called 
them  "atheists."  The  very  existence  of  the  Christian 
Social  Reform  movement  is  a  confession  of  failure 
in  Christianity  itself.  Where  it  is  a  question  of  thesis 
against  thesis  true  Christianity  refrains  from  the  argu- 
ment, for  its  only  claim  is  to  have  the  living  God — and 
He  is  not  a  "standpoint"  for  any  party. 

To  make  the  Gospel  a  standpoint  is  to  spoil  it.  It 
is  not  opposed  to  any  particular  theory  because  it 
makes  nothing  of  theories  at  all.  It  gets  at  the  moving 
spirit  in  all  affairs,  and  holds  to  that,  concerned  only 
to  condemn  or  to  commend  that  spirit.  It  needs  no 
system ;  it  is  free  of  all  the  paraphernalia  of  systems. 
It  has  the  living  God.  On  the  other  hand,  Christian 
Social  Reform  is  nothing  but  the  contest  between  the 
theories  and  postulates  of  official  Christianity  and 
those  of  the  Social  Democracv.  It  is  a  contest  between 
non-essentials,  and  it  takes  place  on  a  theater  where 
the  great  forces  that  are  making  for  the  advancement 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God  do  not  appear.  God  is  bring- 
ing His  designs  to  accomplishment,  but  He  hardly 
needs  the  help  of  the  Christian  Social  Reform.  It  is 
too  pedantic  for  Him  to  use  it;  it  has  too  much  of  the 
trader  spirit. 

Let  us  see  of  what  sort  are  the  measures  which 
the  Christian  Social  Reformers  have  devised  for  the 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  45 

discomfiture  of  the  Social  Democrats  and  the  salva- 
tion of  society. 


PROGRAM  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  SOCIAL  LABOR  PARTY. 
GENERAL  PRINCIPLES.* 

1.  The  Christian  Social  Labor  Party  has  for  its 
basis  the  Christian  faith  and  the  love  of  King  and 
Fatherland. 

2.  It  repudiates  the  principles  of  the  Social 
Democracy  as  unpractical,  unchristian  and  unpatriotic. 

3.  It  strives  for  a  pacific  organization  of  laboring 
men,  to  open  up  the  way  for  needed  practical  reforms, 
in  co-operation  with  all  the  other  factors  in  the  life 
of  the  State. 

4.  It  aims  at  narrowing  the  gulf  between  the  rich 
and  the  poor,  and  introducing  a  greater  economic  se- 
curity. 

SPECIAL    OBJECTS. 

A.    The  Organization  of  Labor. 

1.  The  introduction  of  obligatory  unions  in  each 
separate  industry  throughout  the  whole  Empire,  and 
their  uniform  regulation  of  apprenticeship. 

2.  The  erection  of  tribunals  of  obligatory  arbitra- 
tion. 

3.  The  compulsory  establishment  of  income  funds 


♦The  principles  of  the  Christian  Social  Labor  Party 
will  be  of  peculiar  interest  to  wide-awake  Americans,  for 
just  such  inadequate  and  confusing  ideas  are  beginning  to 
take  root  here.  But  capitalism  will  not  grant  even  such  re- 
forms until  forced  by  the  fear  of  Socialism. 


46  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

for   the   care   of   widows,   orphans,   invalids  and  the 
aged. 

4.  The  authorization  of  the  unions  to  represent 
the  interests  and  the  rights  of  the  laborers  before  their 
employers. 

5.  The  responsibility  of  the  union  for  contracts 
entered  into  by  the  laborers. 

6.  State  control  of  the  unions'  finances. 

B.     The  Protection  of  Laborers. 

1.  Prohibition  of  Sunday  work,  and  abolition  of 
children's  and  married  women's  labor  in  the  factories. 

2.  A  normal  working  day,  somewhat  varied  in  the 
different  unions. 

3.  Energetic  propaganda  for  international  laws 
for  the  protection  of  laborers ;  and,  until  this  goal  is 
reached,  a  sufficient  protection  of  the  laborer  by  na- 
tional laws. 

4.  Protection  of  the  working  people  against  un- 
wholesome conditions  in  their  places  of  labor  and  in 
their  homes. 

5.  Re-enactment  of  the  laws  against  usury. 

C.     State  Employment. 

1.  Management  of  the  present  property  of  the 
State  and  of  the  commune  in  a  manner  friendly  to 
labor,  and  extension  of  state-ownership  as  far  as  it 
is  economically  advisable  and  technically  feasible. 

D.    Taxes. 

1.  Progressive  income-tax  as  an  equalizing  coun- 
terpoise to  existing  or  future  indirect  taxes. 

2.  Progressive  inheritance  tax  in  the  case  of  large 
estates  or  distant  relationships. 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  47 

3.  Stock-transfer  tax. 

4.  High  taxes  on  luxuries. 

E.    On  the  Part  of  the  Clergy. 

1.  Sympathetic  active  participation  in  all  efforts 
directed  towards  the  physical  and  moral  welfare  and 
religious  elevation  of  the  whole  people. 

F.    On  the  Part  of  the  Owners  of  Wealth. 

1.  A  hearty  advance  to  meet  the  lawful  demands 
of  the  poor,  especially  through  influence  on  legisla- 
tion, and  through  all  possible  increase  in  wages,  and 
shortening  of  the  hours  of  labor. 

G.     As  to  Self-help. 

1.  Cheerful  support  of  the  unions  as  the  equiva- 
lent of  all  that  was  good  and  useful  in  the  guilds. 

2.  High  respect  for  one's  personal  and  vocational 
honor,  the  elimination  of  all  coarse  pleasures,  and  the 
cultivation  of  family  life  in  the  Christian  spirit. 

6. 

Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  if  the  Social  Democracy 
has  served  only  to  impress  these  harmless,  unobjec- 
tionable precepts  on  the  Christian  consciousness,  it 
has  missed  its  mission  utterly.  If  all  that  is  involved 
in  this  great  movement  is  to  bring  into  operation 
Stoecker's  program  of  the  Christian  Social  laborers, 
then  we  have  no  need  to  speak  of  the  social  question. 
For  in  that  case  we  have  many  (and  not  altogether 
new)  social  questions,  but  not  the  one  question  that 
is  burning  to-day  in  the  hearts  of  all  educated  men. 
Whether  it  be  Stoecker's  program  or  Naumann's,  that 
which  is  really  weighty  is  not  there.     What  Stoecker 


48  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

and  Naumann  had  in  mind  when  they  wrote  on  social 
questions  is  of  subordinate  interest;  brilliant,  to  be 
sure,  as  is  everything  they  say,  none  of  it  has  weight 
enough  to  claim  more  than  passing  attention.  We 
shall  soon  see  where  the  true  significance  of  the 
Social  Democracy  lies.  First,  however,  I  am  going  to 
consider  somewhat  more  closely  the  program  of 
Stoecker  with  its  later  modifications  by  Naumann,  be- 
cause it  illustrates  so  clearly  the  insufficiency  of  their 
mode  of  treatment. 

Especially  noticeable  is  the  place  so  ostentatiously 
given  to  Christianity  in  the  system.  It  has  only  decor- 
ative significance,  however.  The  banner  of  Chris- 
tianity is  raised  to  attract  the  eyes  of  the  world,  but 
the  contents  of  the  system  have  nothing  to  do  with 
Christianity.  One  can  agree  with  each  single  article 
without  taking  one's  stand  "on  the  ground  of  the 
Christian  faith,"  or  even  on  the  "love  of  King  and 
Fatherland."  One  hardly  understands  why  these 
phrases  are  brought  in.  If  it  is  meant  to  suggest 
that  the  program  is  that  of  a  "Christian"  social  order, 
one  cannot  see  why  it  does  not  just  as  well  fit  a 
purely  "human"  order,  without  any  specific  Chris- 
tian implication.  On  the  other  hand,  if  it  is  to  serve 
as  the  program  of  a  realizable  socialism,  in  contrast 
to  the  "impractical"  Social  Democracy,  one  cannot  see 
why  this  very  sober  and  rational  program  should  have 
to  sail  under  the  fiaff  of  Christianitv.  One  would  have 
to  assume  that  Christianity  alone  is  able  to  bring  to 
pass  the  practical — an  assumption  which  is  manifestly 
untrue,  and  which  would  be  of  small  credit  to  Chris- 
tianity if  it  were  true.    We  had  every  right  to  expect 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  49 

from  Stoecker,  after  his  powerful  sermons  calling 
the  Social  Democratic  laborers  to  repentance,  that  his 
Christianity,  preached  as  the  sole  salvation,  would  be 
the  center  of  a  positive  program  for  the  betterment  of 
the  condition  of  labor ;  that  he  would  be  most  diligent 
to  develop  a  new  order  of  things  out  of  the  depth  of 
Christianity  itself.  But,  nothing  of  the  sort  did  he 
do.  What  is  meant  for  example,  when  the  clergy  are 
bidden  to  show  a  loving  and  active  sympathy  "with 
all  endeavors  directed  towards  the  increase  of  physical 
and  spiritual  welfare,  and  the  moral-religious  eleva- 
tion of  the  whole  people"?  To  what  endeavors  are 
the  clergy  bidden  to  give  aid?  Those  which  have 
Christianity  for  their  source,  or  those  which  proceed 
from  an  entirely  different  source,  and  which  merely 
find  a  support  in  Christianity?  And  what  kind  of 
bodily  and  spiritual  welfare  is  to  be  considered  ele- 
vating? Will  it  include  those  manifestations  of  civili- 
zation which  are  indifferent  or  hostile  to  Christianity; 
will  it  include  such,  without  their  being  reproached 
as  not  contributing  to  spiritual  well  being?  And  what 
meaningless  phrase-making  it  seems  to  speak  of  the 
moral-religious  elevation  of  the  whole  people,  in  the 
face  of  the  fact  that  nothing  is  so  disrupted,  nothing 
is  in  such  hopeless  confusion  as  the  religious  ideas  of 
modern  men.  Furthermore,  how  are  we  to  take  it  that 
to  the  possessing  classes  is  merely  made  the  weak 
appeal  to  meet  cheerfully  the  "just  demands  of  the 
possessionless  classes"?  What  must  the  masters  of 
finance,  the  great  capitalists  and  proprietors  think  of 
these  timid  demands?  Does  it  not  seem  as  if  every 
phrase  were  left  in  the  air  on  purpose,  in  order  to 


50  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

waft  the  bark  of  Christian  Social  Reform  safely  past 
this  most  dangerous  of  all  rocks  ? 

Indeed,  a  man  who  did  not  know  Stoecker  better 
might  be  inclined  to  agree  with  the  saying  of  Franz 
Mehring  that  "The  Christian  Social  agitation  which 
Stoecker  started  in  January,  1878,  was  conceived  in  the 
interests  of  the  ruling  classes,  and  in  their  interests 
alone."  ("History  of  the  German  Social  Democracy," 
No.  31,  p.  391.)  But  it  is  unfair  to  attribute  this  pur- 
pose to  Stoecker.  It  is  just  as  indisputable,  however, 
that  in  this  point  (the  question  of  private  ownership) 
his  Christianity  leaves  us  in  the  lurch.  We  shall  come 
back  to  this  point  later. 

In  a  word,  the  entire  separation  between  the  re- 
ligious and  economic  factors  which  we  find  in  this 
program  is  strikingly  noteworthy.  In  it  Christianity 
has  no  independent  meaning;  it  serves  only  to  mark  a 
point  of  view,  and  remains  alongside  the  practical  de- 
mands without  blending  with  them. 

Naumann  likewise  follows  the  same  course.  He 
declares  with  commendable  directness :  "Naturally,  the 
religious  side  is  only  one  side  of  the  Christian  Social 
program ;  the  economic  side  must  be  in  harmony  with 
it.  ("What  is  Christian  Social  Reform?"  No.  1,  p. 
16.)  In  this  single  sentence  the  whole  weakness  of 
Christian  Social  Reform  is  avowed.  A  Christianity  that 
speaks  of  the  religious  as  only  one  side  of  the  pro- 
gram, needing  to  be  completed  by  the  economic  side; 
a  Christianity  that  knows  how  to  divide  into  nice 
categories  all  the  questions  that  it  deals  with,  instead 
of  deriving  them  all  from  one  great  central  thought, 
such  a  Christianity  is  a  shattered  power,  a  half-thing 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  5 1 

from  which  nothing  complete  can  be  expected.  He 
who  sees  only  the  many  and  not  the  one,  who  handles 
every  question  as  an  independent  one  on  its  own  de- 
tached basis,  who  speaks  with  equal  emphasis  now  of 
the  religious  and  now  of  the  economic  standpoint,  lacks 
the  unifying  vision  which  sees  the  essential.  He 
can  talk  of  everything — and  that  is  the  sad  part  of  it ; 
for  he  who  has  anything  to  say  talks  only  of  that  one 
thing.  Christianity  has  this  one  thing,  or  rather  this 
one  person,  though  it  no  longer  knows  it.  Christianity 
has  been  acquainted  with  the  immediate  God,  but  it 
loves  rather  the  many  mediators.  "Now  a  mediator 
is  not  a  mediator  of  one,"  as  Saint  Paul  said,  "but  of 
many;  but  God  is  one."  (Gal.  3,  20.)  We  repeat, 
Christianity  does  not  know  the  living  God. 

7. 

In  his  "Thoughts  Towards  a  Christian  Social  Pro- 
gram" ("Die  Hilfe,"  June  2,  1895),  Naumann  com- 
bines the  following  arguments : 

Jesus  Christ  is  the  true  help. 

Materialism  had  to  come  because  Christian  teach- 
ing had  underrated  the  material  side  of  life. 

A  system  of  political  economics  has  never  been 
fully  realized. 

Science  is  an  inconvenient  but  necessary  accompan- 
iment of  a  popular  movement. 

Measures  of  political  economics  may  be  tested  as 
to  practicability  by  their  capability  of  being  reduced 
to  paragraphs  of  a  legislative  bill,  or  to  statutes  cf 
an  organization,  or  to  specific  rules  for  action. 

The  two  chief  questions  of  current  economics  are 


52  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

the  question  of  capital  and  the  question  of  organiza- 
tion. 

In  the  increasing  concentration  of  capital  in  the 
hands  of  a  few  we  see  a  serious  economic  evil.  Great 
industries  which  could  without  damage  be  conducted 
by  officials  are  ready  to  become  industries  of  the  State, 
as  soon  as  the  State  gives  guarantee  that  the  condi- 
tions of  labor  can  be  improved  in  respect  to  freedom 
and  security  of  life  by  the  transfer  to  State  control. 

To  live  on  interest,  rent  or  profits  without  produc- 
ing anything  is  morally  inferior  to  living  on  wages 
for  labor.  Private  ownership  of  land,  in  the  country 
at  least,  must  be  preserved  at  all  hazards. 

The  union  of  single  groups  of  workers  is  desirable 
in  the  interests  of  the  development  of  trade,  and  also 
of  the  efficiency  of  the  working  class  as  a  whole. 

Aid  through  public  or  private  charity  ought  not 
to  be  resorted  to  until  self-help  through  voluntary  or- 
ganization has  proven  insufficient. 

Enforced  idleness  is  a  fundamental  evil  of  our 
social  condition. 

Here  is  much  that  is  good  and  useful,  but  not  the 
one  thing  needful.  And  still,  after  all,  it  is  that  one 
thing  that  we  expect  of  Christianity.  We  can  easily 
understand  in  the  light  of  the  above  expressions  the 
disgust  of  the  Social  Democrats  for  the  Christian 
Social  Reformers.  It  certainly  does  look  as  if  the  lat- 
ter wanted  to  use  Christianity  only  to  hold  up  before 
the  eyes  of  the  world  the  shield  of  faith,  and  in  the 
shadow  of  that  shield  to  prepare  the  way  for  a  skulk- 
ing reaction.  It  looks  as  if  they  cared  only  to  dis- 
credit thoroughly  the  Social  Democracy  and  to  sub- 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  53 

stitute  for  its  unsparing  postulates  measures  which 
in  detail  sound  very  fine,  but  which  in  the  end  serve 
only  the  reactionary  powers.  For  the  strong  stroke 
of  wing  of  the  Social  Democracy  they  substitute  a 
weak  fluttering  on  the  ground ;  in  the  place  of  a  bold 
defiance  they  give  us  a  clever  inoffensive  speculation; 
from  the  great  impossibilities  they  turn  back  to  the 
possible — and  that  in  a  society  which  pines  for  the 
cleansing  breath  of  the  storm-wind. 

8. 

Let  us  for  a  moment  imagine  Jesus  in  relation  to 
the  present  society.  Which  one  of  the  two  parties 
could  claim  him,  the  Social  Democratic  or  the  Chris- 
tian Social?  What  must  we  think  of  a  society 
which  in  the  name  of  Jesus  deals  with  reform  ac- 
cording to  the  measure  of  a  present  ruled  by  Mam- 
mon? To  such  a  pass  has  the  Church  come  that  it 
fights  under  the  banner  of  Jesus  against  his  Gospel. 
It  wields  the  sword  of  the  spirit — to  quench  all  that 
is  spiritual.  It  uses  the  word  of  God — in  order  to 
falsify  the  divine.  It  is  pious,  but  its  piety  is  god- 
lessness. 

Not  to  speak  of  those  among  the  Christian  Social 
reformers  who  maintain  that  social  misery  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  real  concern  of  Christianity  (like 
Dr.  M.  von  Nathusius  in  his  "What  is  Christian 
Social  Reform?"),  do  even  the  others  really  think  that 
the  enemy,  the  terrible  enemy,  Mammon,  will  let  him- 
self be  overthrown  by  these  semi-Christian,  semi- 
practical  sentences  ?  Do  they  not  see  that  he  will  never 
be   conquered   by   words   but  only  by   deeds?    What 


54  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

does  he  care  for  words?  He  knows  that  all  phrase- 
makers  lie  securely  bound  in  his  chains.  For  cen- 
turies he  has  had  the  Church  making  phrases,  and 
all  the  time  fastening  his  bonds  more  and  more  firmly 
on  the  Church.  And  now  that  the  Church  is  getting 
tired  of  its  bondage  and  rousing  itself  to  look  its' 
mortal  enemy  in  the  face,  it  finds  nothing  better  again 
to  use  than — the  words  of  Christian  Social  Reform. 
Why?  Is  it  not  just  because  the  Church  itself  is 
so  firmly  attached  to  that  same  Mammon  which  it 
is  fighting?  Does  the  Church  fear  at  all  for  its  own 
inner  life?  Does  it  mourn  having  to  abandon  its 
faith?  Why  is  it  so  willing  to  deceive  itself  with 
the  Christian  Social  program?  Does  it  see  the  true 
state  of  affairs  and  yet  refuse  to  see  it?  Why  does 
it  have  only  words,  why  no  deeds?  It  is  because  the 
Church  has  no  God. 

The  Church  is  held  together  by  her  Christian  tra- 
dition. She  regards  her  dogmas  of  God  and  divine 
things  as  the  final  truth,  and  for  just  this  reason  it  is 
impossible  for  her  to  recognize  the  hand  of  God  in 
the  events  which  are  surging  around  her.  She  wishes 
to  defend  herself  as  God's  institution,  and  she  is  only 
defending  herself  for  her  own  selfish  ends.  She 
thinks  that  she  is  concerned  to  preserve  religion  for 
the  people,  but  unconsciously  she  is  concerned  to  pre- 
serve her  own  self.  She  undertakes  to  direct  the  new 
and  dangerous  thoughts  of  men  towards  God,  but  she 
only  directs  them  to  her  own  pious  meditations.  Doc- 
trines, ideas,  opinions  are  her  curse.  What  she  teaches 
and  preaches  are — mere  thoughts.  She  warns  and  re- 
bukes— and   it   is   only   opinions.     She   comforts  and 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  55 

soothes — and  it  is  merely  a  speculation.  She  preaches, 
alas !  not  in  the  spirit  of  the  Lord,  but  only  in  beautiful 
words. 

Everywhere  in  the  Church  of  God  there  is  strife 
over  the  gospel's  choicest  treasures,  strife  over  Jesus, 
over  the  Cross,  over  the  Resurrection,  over  the  Faith. 
Words,  words,  words.  Good  intentions,  noble  resolves 
— how  many  clergymen  with  the  purest  ideals  does  the 
Church  count  in  its  communion?  But  the  enemy 
cannot  be  met  with  intentions,  resolves,  ideas,  opinions 
— only  with  a  new  spirit,  with  fire  and  sword,  with  the 
power  of  the  Living  God  ! 

9- 
And  these  very  flames  of  fire  are  bursting  forth 
in  the  Social  Democratic  ranks.  There  lies  before  me 
the  opinion  of  a  man  of  liberal  views  on  the  Social 
Democrats.  It  reads  as  follows :  "Do  you  not  see 
that  this  movement  is  as  necessary  as  the  conflict  of 
classes  in  the  middle  ages  and  in  the  mad  year  184S? 
Does  not  the  future  of  the  German  nation  rest  for 
the  greater  part  with  these  'comrades'?  Go  into  the 
workshops  and  see.  those  gleaming  eyes,  those  healthy 
temples  behind  which  psychic  powers  as  yet  unex- 
hausted and  unspoiled  are  pulsing,  powers  which  one 
day  will  be  enlisted  in  the  service  of  the  Fatherland. 
We  see  now  only  the  bitterness  and  rancor  of  the 
lalwring  classes,  and  do  not  recognize  the  great  and 
powerful  force  that  is  slumbering  there.  There  is 
the  young  Siegfried,  who  is  forging  the  victor's  sword 
for  himself.  We  see  him  now  only  at  his  toil  and 
trouble."      (Count  Richard  du  Moulin-Eckerd  in  the 


$6  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

"Free  State,"  reprinted  in  the  "Rights  of  the  People," 
1903,  No.  143.) 

Fire,  power,  spirit  this  young  party  has  in  such 
measure  that  men  of  every  class  begin  to  seek  its 
alliance.  On  the  other  hand,  they  are  maligned  and 
cursed  everywhere ;  they  are  painted  in  blood-red  colors 
to  thrill  a  sated  and  enervated  society. 

In  the  salons  of  the  upper  classes  men  talk  with 
shuddering  apprehension  of  the  future  society  of  the 
Social  Democrats — that  innocent  creation  of  an  enthu- 
siastic fancy.  The  bourgeois  press  is  never  tired  of 
calumniating  them  to  please  its  grateful  circles  of 
readers.  And  yet  when  one  meets  these  men — what  a 
different  picture!  I  will  not  try  to  force  a  moral 
and  say  that  on  one  side  is  only  virtue  and  excellence 
and  on  the  other  only  darkness  and  evil.  No.  Men 
are  faulty  everywhere,  in  all  parties.  But  this  much 
we  must  confess;  nowhere  else  have  we  met  so  great 
and  so  pure  an  enthusiasm  for  high  purposes,  neither 
among  the  conservatives  nor  among  the  radicals,  nor 
in  any  religious  party.  All  the  religious  parties  are 
paralyzed  by  Mammon's  friendship.  Only  the  Social 
Democracy  stands  out  against  Mammon  as  a  pro- 
nounced enemy,  irrespective  of  the  individual  interests 
of  its  members.  They  are  comrades  in  the  cause — 
the  Social  Democracy  for  mankind.  They  are  filled 
with  a  noble  ambition  and  reverence  for  humanity. 
The  Social  Democracy  has  one  great  purpose  that  in- 
spires it.    What  is  this  purpose? 

The  Social  Democracy  itself  hardly  knows  what 
is  the  answer  to  that  question.  And  this  is  just  its 
advantage  over  all  the  other  parties.     They  all  know 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  57 

so  well  just  what  they  want.  Alas,  it  is  so  easy  to 
compass  the  narrow  circle  of  their  wishes.  He  who 
strives  for  that  which  cannot  be  taken  in  at  a  glance; 
whose  activities  do  not  lie  within  fixed  bounds ;  whose 
aims  cannot  be  summed  up  in  clever  phrases — he 
alone  has  a  real  will.  Behind  such  a  will  stands  the 
living  God. 

Did  the  prophets  of  Israel,  driven  by  the  spirit  of 
God,  know  just  what  they  wanted?  See  how  a  Jere- 
miah shudders  as  he  faces  his  fate.  He  would  rather 
die  than  live  as  he  must.  But,  so  live  he  must.  And 
to-day  the  Social  Democrats  carry  about  a  great  irre- 
sistible must  in  their  hearts.  Whither  it  will  lead  them 
they  know  not.    They  need  not  know — another  knows. 

To  this  must,  O  Church  of  Christ,  thou  oughtest 
to  join  thyself,  or  else  to  set  over  against  it  thine 
own  must.  If  thou  hast  no  must  to  put  in  the  place 
of  that  of  the  Social  Democrats,  then  hast  thou  lost  thy 
right  to  judge  them.  The  very  fact  that  thou  dost  fall 
with  such  emphasis  on  their  "scientific"  theories,  that 
thou  dost  think  to  meet  theory  with  theory,  postulate 
with  postulate ;  that  thou  art  caught  fast  in  the  bram- 
bles of  propositions  and  quibbles,  proves  that  thou  hast 
lost  the  right  to  judge.  Thou  hast  no  must — thou  hast 
no  God. 

10. 

From  our  point  of  view,  the  scientific  theories  of 
the  Social  Democrats  are  of  no  account  whatever. 
Did  it  make  any  difference  how  the  early  Christians 
interpreted  the  new  impulses  whose  servants  they 
were?  Did  the  mighty  power  which  swayed  them 
depend  on  their  uncertain  dogmatic  gropings?     Was 


58  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

it  the  chief  feature  of  the  Reformation  that  its  cham- 
pions thought  out  the  theories  in  which  they  hoped  to 
express  the  new  spiritual  forces  of  the  day?  "The 
wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and  thou  hearest  the 
sound  thereof,  but  canst  not  tell  whence  it  cometh 
or  whither  it  goeth."  And  if  to-day  the  breezes  are 
echoing  with  the  promise  of  the  future  commonwealth, 
the  theories  of  surplus  value,  and  the  like,  does  that 
fact  exhaust  the  real  meaning  of  the  Social  Democratic 
movement?  Is  not  the  true  significance  of  the  move- 
ment rather  the  wonderful  inspiration  of  a  vision  to 
create  some  new  great  thing?  Let  the  theorists  among 
the  Social  Democrats  sit  dreaming  over  their  theories ; 
he  who  to-day  believes  that  the  Marxist  theory  of  sur- 
plus value,  for  example,  is  the  all  important  thing 
in  the  new  movement,  does  not  realize  how  world- 
history  proceeds,  and  does  not  recognize  the  hidden 
depths  out  of  which  each  new  event  derives  its  motive 
power.  To  be  sure,  the  Social  Democrats  imagine 
an  entirely  new  society,  and  see  perhaps  only  the 
economic  factors.  But  it  is  not  this  or  that  particular 
idea  of  theirs,  but  rather  their  main  conviction,  that 
of  the  necessity  of  a  renovation  of  our  social  life 
which  is  (in  its  very  indefiniteness)  the  great  God- 
inspired  element  of  their  activity. 

The  Social  Democrats  cherish  a  wonderful  hope  in 
their  hearts ;  they  speak  and  sing  of  a  brotherhood  of 
nations,  a  golden  age  of  equality  and  liberty.  We 
laugh  at  them — and  they  bear  it ;  we  scold  them — and 
they  remain  unmoved ;  we  ridicule  them — -and  they  ex- 
pect nothing  else.  They  know  that  the  present  world 
has  no  room  for  them — hence  they  prepare  the  way 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  59 

for  the  new  order.  They  have  recognized  the  fact 
that  the  god  of  this  world,  Mammon,  must  fall.  They 
make  no  truce  with  Mammon,  they  have  no  need  of 
vain  words;  of  riddles  and  sophistries.  They  speak 
what  they  think,  and  let  a  whole  world  jeer  them. 
Mammon  is  the  arch-enemy  of  mankind,  but  Mammon 
cannot  fall  before  good  intentions  alone ;  he  will  fall 
only  before  deeds.  And  when  Mammon  falls,  then 
comes  the  new  age.  Yes,  a  new  age,  and  not  simply 
a  new  heart.  That  is  their  great  must,  which  compen- 
sates them  for  all  the  obloquy  which  a  trembling  and 
self-blinded  society  heaps  upon  them. 

Must  they  not  say  that  the  differences  between  men 
shall  cease,  since  these  differences  come  from  the  rule 
of  Mammon? 

Must  they  not  demand  that  humanity  make  a  great 
unity,  since  it  is  Mammon  that  splits  humanity  into 
a  thousand  fragments? 

Must  they  not  insist  that  the  barriers  of  nation- 
ality fall,  since  it  is  Mammon  that  makes  the  pride 
of  nationality? 

Must  they  not  prophesy  a  new  age,  since  the  pres- 
ent age  is  but  the  reflection  of  Mammon? 

Must  they  not  be  despised  as  dreamers  fantastical 
and  fanatical,  since  this  opinion  is  but  a  sign  of  the 
respect  paid  to  Mammon  by  a  decaying  generation  ? 

Must  they  not  postulate  impossibilities,  so  long- 
as  the  possible  and  the  practical  mean  simply  the  bow- 
ing down  before  the  image  of  Mammon? 

Unpractical,  not  to  be  considered,  impossible  are 
men's  judgments  on  their  program.  And  why?  Be- 
cause men  fear  to  offend  Mammon. 


6o  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

Fools  and  simpletons  the  Social  Democrats  are 
called.  Yes,  the  divine  has  always  been  foolish  and 
simple  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  No  more  honorable 
epithet  could  be  given  them  than  that  which  truth  has 
always  borne.  God  is  working  in  them — and  in  the 
name  of  God  the  Church  is  fighting  them. 

ii. 

Mammon  has  subdued  the  world;  not  only  the 
hearts  and  thoughts  of  men  but  their  outward  condi- 
tion as  well.  He  has  appropriated  to  himself  every  in- 
vention, every  improvement  in  the  field  of  technical 
skill.  That  new  knowledge  which  might  have  freed 
men  from  the  brute  power  of  physical  laws  and  made 
them  lords  of  nature,  has  become  in  Mammon's  hand 
a  tool  to  distress  them,  a  slave-driver's  whip  under 
whose  strokes  the  defenceless  masses  cringe.  The 
nearer  men  think  that  they  are  approaching  the  goal 
of  their  desires,  the  more  awfully  are  they  deceived. 
And  Mammon  has  done  it  all ! 

Who  sets  man  against  man  like  the  beasts  of  the 
jungle?  Who  puts  the  weapons  of  murder  into  their 
hands?  Who  makes  kings  and  princes  the  boon  com- 
panions of  base  money-lenders?  Who  stops  their  ears 
so  that  they  cannot  hear  the  cry  of  the  oppressed? 
Who  keeps  bringing  India  to  the  verge  of  famine? 
Who  has  reduced  the  Transvaal  to  a  desert?  Who 
daily  subverts  truth  and  faith  in  the  people,  and  con- 
science in  the  people's  servants?  Who  makes  us  bear 
the  unspeakable  banality  of  our  modern  life  patiently 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  6l 

and  unconsciously  even,  consumed  as  we  are  by  our 
own  interests? 

MAMMON. 

While  we  are  wasting  tears  over  the  horrors  that 
Mammon  has  brought  to  pass,  while  we  are  uniting 
in  brotherhoods,  societies  and  clubs,  while  we  are 
making  speeches  in  which  we  warn  the  "possessing 
classes  to  meet  the  just  demands  of  the  possession- 
less  classes,"  while  we  are  formulating  wise  systems 
and  advancing  noble  postulates — Mammon  sits  at  his 
bloody  work.  He  does  not  say,  "My  kingdom  is 
theory  and  speculation;"  nay,  he  says  rather,  "The 
material  world  is  mine." 

How  can  we  think  of  overthrowing  his  power 
without  being  willing  to  face  a  revolution  in  the  con- 
ditions of  society?  How  can  we  take  the  field  against 
him  without  the  firm  conviction  that  his  whole  king- 
dom, the  ownership  of  the  world,  must  be  wrested 
from  him?  The  present  conditions  of  ownership  have 
developed  out  of  the  rule  of  Mammon,  and  only  the 
servants  of  Mammon  can  be  satisfied  with  them.  They 
have  sprung  from  the  laws  of  avarice  and  privilege, 
the  basest  motives  of  the  human  heart.  They  must 
cease — when  the  battle  against  Mammon  is  waged  in 
earnest. 

These  conditions  of  ownership  must  cease.  This 
is  the  divine  summons  of  our  age.  But  this  is  ex- 
actly the  summons  from  which  the  Church  shrinks. 
The  Church  will  "do  all  that  it  can."  It  will  gladly 
do  "the  possible  and  the  practical."  It  will  willingly 
seek  to  soften  hearts  with  advice  in  sermons,  but  it 
will  not  hear  a  word  of  change  in  the  existing  order 


62  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

of  property  and  production.  It  does  not  yet  know 
what  Mammon  is.  It  is  too  close  itself  to  Mammon 
to  distinguish  him.  It  belongs  itself  to  the  "possess- 
ing classes." 

For  all  that,  it  is  clear  that  if  Mammon  is  to  be 
overthrown,  his  chief  source  of  power,  the  present 
status  of  property,  must  be  abolished.  He  who  would 
reduce  his  enemy  to  impotence  must  take  away  his 
source  of  nourishment.  The  laws  of  property  are  the 
nourishment  of  Mammon.  Let  unlimited  private  own- 
ership of  property  continue  to  exist  as  it  does  to- 
day, and  you  will  preach  a  thousand  eloquent  ser- 
mons against  Mammon  in  vain ;  you  will  not  alter  a 
jot  or  tittle  of  his  power.  And  Mammon  will  re- 
ward your  toil  with  gold  and  with  a  respectable 
pulpit. 

He  likes  these  futile  protests;  he  delights  in  these 
gestures  as  in  the  antics  of  a  clown ;  he  roars  with 
good-natured  mirth  over  them,  and  is  ready  to  pay 
liberally  the  Christian  simplicity  which,  pledged  to 
words  and  abhorring  deeds,  strengthens  his  power  in 
every  word  it  speaks ! 

Well  he  knows  the  truth  of  the  saying:  the  more 
they  make  of  words  the  farther  they  are  from  deeds. 

The  curse  of  the  Christian  Church  is  this:  It  has 
surrendered  to  Mammon.  Hence  the  ready  tongue 
of  the  Church;  for  where  there  are  many  words  with 
little  desire  to  act,  there  lurks  Mammon.  Hence  the 
parade  of  a  belief  in  God.  The  Church  is  thus  cov- 
ering the  chains  which  Mammon  has  woven  around 
it.  Hence  the  mere  '"practical"  measures  with  which 
the  Church   responds  to  the  social  demands  for  re- 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  6$ 

form,  and  the  '"possible"  programs  with  which  it 
meets  the  impossibilities  of  the  Social  Democrats.  The 
possible  belongs  to  the  realm  of  Mammon.  Only 
the  impossible  can  conquer  him.  He  is  lord  of  this 
world.  Alas  for  the  Church  that  has  no  more  faith 
in  the  great  impossibilities !  Its  many  words  are  the 
sad  proof  that  it  no  longer  has  the  power  to  act. 

12. 

There  was  a  time  when  it  was  counted  foolishness 
to  belong  to  the  Christian  Church.  In  those  days 
spirit  and  life  glowed  in  its  communion.  The  Church 
in  the  power  of  its  "impossible  folly"  opened  a  new 
epoch  in  the  world's  history.  That  day  has  passed ; 
and  the  Church  has  become  rational,  cultured,  amen- 
able. It  accuses  the  Social  Democrats  of  godlessness 
that  it  may  still  its  own  uneasy  conscience.  Could  the 
Social  Democrats  confess  that  God  in  whose  name  the 
interests  of  Mammon  are  cherished? 

The  roles  have  changed;  the  bold  and  powerful 
have  become  weak,  and  the  poor  and  suffering  have 
become  bold  and  powerful. 

The  Social  Democrats  are  doing  what  the  Church 
should  have  done. 

Where  God  should  dwell  there  He  is  not  found, 
and  where  one  would  not  look  for  Him  there  He 
dwells.  The  words  of  old — when  the  first  heathen 
came  into  His  Kingdom — are  true  to-day:  "I  am 
found  of  them  that  sought  Me  not,  and  to  a  nation  that 
was  not  called  by  My  name  I  said,  Behold  Me,  behold 
Me." 

But  to  Israel  He  said :     "I  have  spread  out  My 


64  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

hands  all  the  day  to  a  rebellious  people,  which  walked 
in  a  way  that  was  not  good." 

And  Jesus  said:     "The  first  shall  be  last  and  the 
last  first." 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  65 


CHAPTER  III. 

"THE     SOCIAL     DEMOCRATS     SEEK     TO  UNDERMINE  AND 
DESTROY    CHRISTIAN    TRUTH." 

But  Christians  are  heard  voicing  an  energetic  pro- 
test. They  say:  "We  have  not  words  alone;  we 
have  the  power  from  above,  the  spirit  of  God.  We 
have  the  promise  of  victory,  for  the  religion  of  the 
Cross  is  the  only  salvation." 

Let  us  consider  closely  this  charge,  that  the 
Social  Democrats  seek  to  undermine  and  destroy  the 
Christian  truth,  and  that  thus  they  will  destroy  them- 
selves. 

1. 

Two  voices  come  from  the  Christian  Church;  one 
of  them  delivers  itself  in  the  following  manner: 

"God  has  revealed  himself  in  the  person  of  Jesus 
Christ.  He  who  speaks  of  God  must  speak  of  Jesus 
too ;  for  he  that  hath  not  the  Son  hath  not  the  Father. 
One  need  not  speak  in  general  terms  only  of  a  Provi- 
dence that  rules  all  things.  We  maintain  that  the  liv- 
ing God  can  be  grasped  by  us  mortals  only  in  the  per- 
son of  Jesus.  And  the  knowledge  of  Jesus  is  a  ques- 
tion of  the  heart.  It  is  evident,  then,  that  the  gospel 
of  Jesus  has  nothing  to  do  directly  with  the  social 
question.  Christianity  has  only  one  real  pur- 
pose. 'I  am  come,'  said  Jesus,  'that  ye  might  have 
life.'  But  we  have  life  in  the  full  only  in  God,  and 
we  have  God  only  in  the  forgiveness  of  our  sins.  Into 
this  kingdom  of  death,  misery  and  sin  has  burst  the 


66  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

joyful  message  of  the  Savior,  who  is  our  eternal 
refuge.  Christ  has  made  us  free,  free  from  fear,  free 
from  death,  free  from  self  to  enjoy  the  glorious  lib- 
erty of  the  sons  of  God.  If  this  inner  freedom  is  ours 
to  assure  us  that  there  is  no  condemnation  for  us  who 
are  in  Christ,  then  it  is  immaterial  to  us  in  what  out- 
ward condition  we  find  ourselves.  'If  I  have  thee,  I 
ask  nothing  else  in  heaven  or  earth.'  All  mundane 
conditions,  health  or  sickness,  poverty  or  riches,  lone- 
liness or  happiness,  freedom  or  slavery — all  such 
things  belong  to  the  fashion  of  this  world,  and  the 
fashion  of  this  world  passeth  away.  But  the  life  of 
Christ  in  us,  which  is  freedom,  remains.  The  only 
purpose,  I  repeat,  of  Christianity  is  to  bring  us  to 
this  freedom,  this  eternal  life."  (M.  von  Nathusius, 
"What  is  Christian  Social  Reform?"  pp.  14-15.) 

So  speaks  one  party,  and  the  other  party  says : 
"The  message  that  Jesus  brought  was  a  message  that 
appealed  to  his  age — the  gospel  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  In  sermon  and  parable,  in  personal  exhortation 
and  in  longer  discourses  he  kept  insisting  on  the  one 
fact:  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand,  it  is  among 
you,  ye  may  belong  to  it  as  soon  as  ye  will.  The  glo- 
rious nature  of  the  Kingdom  he  portrayed  for  all.  It 
was  a  Kingdom  of  community  in  which  all  former  in- 
equalities and  dissonances  should  be  changed  into  an 
everlasting  unity.  We  are  the  dear  children  of  one 
God.  The  high  and  the  low,  the  near  and  the  far. 
the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  learned  and  the  ignorant 
should  all  be  one.  No  one  should  be  despised  henceforth 
because  he  had  nothing,  and  no  one  should  be  hon- 
ored henceforth  because  he  had    much.       Mammon 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  (fj 

should  no  longer  rule  the  world,  but  men  should  seek 
higher  things.  Everything  should  belong  to  God, 
hearts  and  hands,  houses  and  lands,  powers  and  pos- 
sessions. In  God's  service  and  in  the  love  of  the 
brethren  one's  life  should  be  consumed."  (F.Naumann, 
"The  Social  Program  of  the  Evangelical  Church,"  p. 
18.) 

The  first  party  grants,  to  be  sure,  the  practical  sig- 
nificance of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  in  the  world,  and  the 
latter  grants  that  the  transformation  of  the  earthly 
life,  as  manifested  by  Jesus,  does  not  exclude  the  ques- 
tion of  the  individual's  salvation,  but  rather  assumes 
it.  The  former  does  not  intend  to  shut  out  the  social 
question,  nor  the  latter  to  slight  the  personal  relation 
to  the  gospel.  Only  they  emphasize  respectively  the 
inner  and  the  outer  factors  in  religion ;  the  one  the 
realization  of  individual  freedom,  the  other  the  con- 
summation of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

Both  sides  openly  confess  this  conflict  of  views. 
For  example,  Nathusius  writes  :  "We  agree  with  Nau- 
mann  when  he  says  in  Die  Hilfe,  Tn  the  superfi- 
cial dead  Christianity  which  echoes  the  views  of  the 
propertied  classes,  the  living  person  of  Christ  is  so 
obscured  that  pious  people  seriously  ask  themselves, 
Are  we  still  Christians?'  But  when  Naumann  goes 
on  to  say:  'This  announcement  is  the  end  of  the 
spiritual  office,'  the  words  are  not  wise  ones.  We  see 
how  false  the  point  of  view  is  when  we  read  that  the 
entire  significance  of  Christianity  is  in  the  discovery 
of  the  whole  Jesus.  So  then,  the  Reformation  fath- 
ers only  preached  a  part  of  him,  when  they  set  the 
doctrine  of  the  forgiveness  of  our  sins  through  Christ's 


68  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

blood  as  the  keystone  of  their  system,  as  opposed  to 
a  superficial  rationalism.  Did  our  fathers  fail  to  preach 
the  regeneration  that  comes  from  the  forgiveness  of 
sins?" 

Naumann,  on  the  other  hand,  says:  "The  soul  of 
conservative  Christianity  is  faith  in  the  sufferings  and 
death  of  Jesus  Christ,  by  which  men  are  saved.  The 
religion  of  sacrifice  and  reconciliation  was  preached 
with  zeal;  the  risen,  living,  present  Jesus  was  em- 
braced by  all  hearts.  That  was  the  merit  of  the 
regeneration  of  the  old  faith.  The  look  at  the  Cru- 
cified One  was  life-giving  once  more.  What  did  the 
man  who  was  assured  of  his  salvation,  who  knew  that 
he  was  reconciled  to  God,  and  who  beat  down  the  evil 
tendencies  under  his  feet,  see  in  the  Crucified?  He 
saw  the  Lamb  who  bears  the  sin  of  the  world,  but  he 
did  not  see  with  the  same  clearness  the  persecuted 
man,  the  man  murdered  by  the  religious  and  secular 
authorities  of  his  country.  In  short,  the  modern  prole- 
tarian will  view  the  sufferings  of  Jesus  as  something 
still  present  in  the  world,  and  not  (like  the  citizen 
of  assured  standing)  as  a  drama  passed.  He  will 
hold  all  that  which  is  dear  to  the  heart  of  every  man 
in  the  conception  of  Jesus,  but  he  will  still  see  the 
matter  as  a  more  present  revelation,  because  he  himself 
is  still  struggling  and  toiling. 

"Jesus  lives.  This  faith  takes  the  form:  Lord 
Jesus,  how  would  it  be  with  thee  to-day,  if  thou  didst 
and  saidst  the  same  things  as  thou  didst  and  saidst 
once  on  earth?  Jesus  lives  not  only  as  the  dogma  of 
the  God-man,  as  the  Lamb  of  God,  sacrificed  for  our 
sins — he  lives  also  in  his  undying  words:     "Ye  can- 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  69 

not  serve  God  and  Mammon."  ("What  is  Christian 
Social  Reform  t"  I.  p.  59.) 

Both  Nathusius  and  Naumann  are  right,  and  both 
are  wrong:  wrong,  because  they  cannot  join  these  con- 
flicting views  in  a  higher  unity.    This  leads  us  further. 

2. 

"Jesus  Christ,  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  for- 
ever." If  we  ask  the  different  Christian  parties  the 
meaning  of  this  central  truth  of  Christianity,  we  re- 
ceive the  most  various  answers,  none  of  which  can 
perhaps  be  disputed,  but  we  do  not  receive  the  an- 
swer. Still  the  real  answer  is  at  hand,  and  readily 
understood,  only  men  do  not  recognize  it  as  the  real 
answer.  They  bury  it  beneath  all  sorts  of  secondary 
answers.  They  have  said  it,  however,  when  they  say, 
"Through  Jesus  we  are  reconciled  to  God,"  and, 
"Jesus  has  brought  to  us  the  Kingdom  of  God." 

What  does  this  mean?  Simply  this,  that  with 
Jesus  began  the  just  appreciation  of  God  among  men. 

We  are  convinced  that  this  truth  in  its  full  extent 
and  significance  has  never  been  grasped  by  Chris- 
tianity.   Therefore  we  must  speak  of  it  more  closely. 

We  have  seen  that  what  is  characteristic  in  the 
person  of  Jesus  is  that  he  represents  for  us  the  living 
God.  Not  only  represents  him,  but  embodies  him. 
The  appearance  of  Jesus  on  earth  means  that,  from 
that  time  on,  not  the  human  but  the  divine  prevails. 
That  is  the  burden  of  his  preaching  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  of  his  signs  and  wonders,  of  his  command 
to  take  up  one's  cross  and  follow  him.  It  pulsates  in 
his  every  word,  it  shines  from  his  every  deed.  It  is 
to  this  truth  he  leads  us  when  he  teaches  us  to  pray, 


70  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

"Our  Father  which  art  in  heaven."  For  God  he  de- 
scends into  the  grave,  and  for  Him  he  rises  from  the 
grave. 

Jesus  alters  the  values  of  all  earthly  things.  He 
builds  all  values  on  the  wonderful  reality  of  God. 
This  transformation  of  the  values  of  human  life  is  a 
process  not  yet  complete.  Herein  is  the  battle  which 
he  left  behind  to  his  followers,  the  fire  which  he 
came  to  kindle  on  earth. 


This  battle  is  the  business  of  all  his  apostles.  St. 
Paul  formulates  his  Christianity  thus :  The  righteous- 
ness of  God  is  revealed  in  the  Gospel.  The  duty  of 
the  Christian  is  to  bring  to  the  world  the  apprecia- 
tion of  God.  The  Gentiles  and  the  Jews  have  aban- 
doned God — the  former  to  revel  in  the  filth  of  sin, 
the  latter  to  substitute  a  false  worship  of  God,  full 
of  self-righteousness,  for  their  real  mission  of  being 
the  people  of  God,  that  is,  the  people  for  God  in 
the  world. 

The  worship  of  temple  and  altar  is  vain,  because 
it  serves  the  interests  of  men  and  is  no  longer  the  ex- 
pression of  kinship  with  God.  All  that  men  can  do 
to  make  terms  with  God  by  the  work  of  their  hands 
is  false,  for  it  is  not  our  business  to  make  terms  with 
God.  So  all  religion  that  consists  in  doctrines  and 
ceremonies  is  reprehensible,  for  nothing  must  stand 
between  man  and  God.  St.  Paul  sees  only  stagnation 
and  blindness  in  the  Jewish  piety;  his  soul  hates  every 
work  that  does  not  proceed  from  the  Christian  in 
communion  with  God.     This  communion  he  finds  in 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  7 1 

faith.  Faith,  in  distinction  from  works,  is  simply  the 
assertion  of  the  divine,  the  victory  of  God,  the  right- 
eousness of  God  upon  earth.  To  live  for  God,  that  is 
faith. 

So  stood  Abraham  in  the  far  distant  past,  and  so 
would  St.  Paul  have  every  one  stand  to-day.  You 
have,  he  cries,  full  access  to  God  in  Jesus  Christ;  you 
belong  to  Him.  Glory  in  your  tribulation,  for  all 
tribulation,  all  that  has  straitened  and  oppressed 
you  till  now,  henceforth  has  lost  its  power.  Death 
has  lost  its  sting,  for  the  justification  of  life  and 
all  that  makes  the  confidence  of  life  has  come  into 
the  world  with  Jesus  Christ.  Life,  not  death ;  strength, 
not  weakness ;  grace,  not  condemnation ;  salvation  and 
glory,  not  destruction  and  sin  have  now  come  into 
power.  For  the  living  God  rules.  You  are  dead  to 
the  sin  which  has  held  you  in  its  oppressive  grasp. 
Nought  oppresses  you,  nought  holds  you,  nought  com- 
pels you  more,  for  you  live  in  God.  You  work  for 
His  Kingdom,  you  are  bringing  in  His  day.  Even  as 
in  the  past  sin  ruled  unto  death,  so  now  let  the  grace 
of  God  rule  through  righteousness  unto  eternal  life 
through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

We  live  in  the  power  of  God,  in  the  Kingdom  of 
God;  we  serve  Him  body  and  soul  in  the  service  of 
righteousness.  We  belong  no  longer  to  self,  we  are 
His.  With  Christ  we  have  died  to  the  old  world, 
to  the  old  order,  to  the  old  principles  and  prejudices, 
to  the  old  theories  and  opinions.  We  live  in  Christ, 
and  we  know  that  Christ  has  been  raised  from  the 
dead  and  dies  no  more.  Death  shall  never  reign  over 
him,  for  in  that  he  died  he  died  once  unto  sin,  but 


72  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

in  that  he  lives,  he  lives  unto  God.  Likewise  we. 
God's  life  pulses  in  us  and  His  spirit  fills  us. 

We  know  only  this,  that  we  live  for  God,  that  we 
have  trodden  under  foot  all  that  has  enslaved  us  until 
now,  that  we  have  done  with  the  shadows  of  sin  and 
death.  We  are  servants  of  the  righteousness  of  God, 
and  it  is  written  in  our  hearts  that  God  will  establish 
His  Kingdom  through  us.  We  know  now  only  the 
eternal.  We  have  no  more  conflicts,  and  we  need  no 
longer  to  repine  and  doubt.  One  Lord,  one  faith,  one 
spirit  in  whose  victorious  power  we  work. 

So  we  Christians  stand  on  a  new  ground.  The 
good  is  no  longer  a  law  to  us,  but  a  potency.  We 
are  mastered  by  its  boundless  reality.  Our  task  is 
no  longer  to  distinguish  between  good  and  bad,  for 
we  know  that  all  good  is  in  the  vision  which  we  have 
seen  of  Jesus,  and  that  to  do  good  consists  in  nothing 
else  than  to  impress  the  reality  of  this  vision  on  a 
dead  world.  The  Christian  lives  in  the  good,  exists 
for  the  good.  The  good  is  no  longer  a  proposition 
for  him,  it  is  his  pulse-beat,  his  breath.  To  be  good 
means  to  maintain  the  sovereignty  of  God  on  earth  as 
in  heaven.  This  is  the  marvelous  simplicity  that  the 
Christian  faith  has  found  in  the  word  of  Jesus. 

In  the  power  of  this  simple  truth,  hell  and  per- 
dition are  done  away.  There  is  no  condemnation  for 
them  that  are  in  Christ  Jesus,  for  they  are  God's.  An 
undreamed-of  glory  opens  before  their  eyes.  We  are 
convinced  that  the  sufferings  of  the  world  are  not  to 
be  compared  with  the  glory  that  shall  be  revealed. 
The  darkest  shadows  vanish  before  this  light.  Here 
is  eternity,  here  is  the  living  God.     What  have  the 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  73 

bondage  of  nature,  the  groans  of  its  creation,  the 
vanity  of  time  to  do  with  us  further?  How  can  the 
laws  of  nature  trouble  us,  when  they  are  solved  in 
a  higher  Being,  or  what  power  have  the  deep  riddles 
and  the  fatalities  of  this  existence?  All  this  must 
cease,  for  the  creature  is  delivered  from  the  bond- 
age of  the  perishing  order  into  the  freedom  of  the 
children  of  God. 

This  is  the  truth  which  fills  the  soul  of  God's  chil- 
dren. They  are  waiting  for  and  expecting  another 
world,  and  in  it  they  create  and  bring  forth.  They  are 
not  idle,  they  die  all  the  long  day,  they  are  led  as  lambs 
to  the  slaughter.  But  in  all  this  they  conquer  through 
Him  who  loved  them.  "For  I  am  persuaded  that 
neither  death,  nor  life,  nor  angels,  nor  principalities, 
nor  powers,  nor  things  present,  nor  things  to  come, 
nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor  any  other  creature  shall  be 
able  to  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God  which  is  in 
Christ  Jesus  our  Lord." 

All  history,  all  development,  must  serve  this  end. 
"God  hath  included  all  under  sin  that  he  might  show 
mercy  unto  all."  For  of  Him  and  through  Him  and 
unto  Him  are  all  things.  Even  if  whole  nations  and 
races  despise  His  name,  even  if  His  own  people,  the 
Jews,  reject  the  faith,  they  all  nevertheless  serve  His 
purpose.  'T  say  then,  did  they  stumble  that  they 
might  fall?  God  forbid.  But  if  by  their  fall  salvation 
is  come  to  the  Gentiles,  how  much  more  by  their  ful- 
ness." 

Does  it  not  seem  as  if  some  such  word  as  this  were 
being  fulfilled  to-day,  now  that  we  Gentiles  have  re- 
ceived from  the  hands  of  the  Jews  (from  Marx  and 


74  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

Engels  and  Lasalle)  that  impetus  called  the  Social 
Democracy  which  is  bringing  us  closer  to  the  great 
aims  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  than  any  other  force  in 
our  age? 

And  the  other  apostles  write  as  St.  Paul.  "Bless- 
ed be  God,"  cries  Peter,  "who  according  to  his  great 
mercy  begat  us  again  into  a  living  hope  through  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  from  the  dead."  The 
spirit  of  eternal  life  breathes  in  the  Epistles  of  St. 
John.  That  the  righteousness  of  God  alone  is  truth 
and  substance  is  the  message  of  every  word  of  St. 
James.  "Look  for  the  mercy  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  for  eternal  life,"  says  Jude.  And  the  last  book 
of  the  Bible,  the  Revelation  of  St.  John,  ends  with 
the  invocation :  "Yea,  come,  Lord  Jesus." 

They  all  expect  the  victory  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  They  preach  of  the  great  redemption  which 
will  extend  to  all  grades  of  creatures,  from  men  down 
to  the  dumb  animals,  from  thrones,  principalities  and 
powers  to  the  children  and  the  simple.  They  see 
everything  in  a  brilliant  and  harmonious  light;  they 
all  press  to  meet  that  day  in  which  God  shall  be  all 
in  all,  when  there  shall  be  no  more  sorrow  nor  weep- 
ing— for  the  former  things  shall  have  passed  away. 

In  such  hope  did  they  establish  the  first  Chris- 
tian communities.  These  communities  came  into  be- 
ing in  the  firm  faith  in  the  living  God,  and  in  God's 
power  they  battled  with  the  powers  of  evil.  For 
this  they  realized  the  promise  that  the  gates  of  hell 
should  not  prevail  against  them. 

With  sad  longing  our  modern  Christianity  looks 
back     to     that     life     lived     in     God's     power.       It 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  75 

would  itself  taste  that  life,  for  it  is  sick  and  faint. 
The  weight  of  the  past  is  heavy  upon  it,  and  in  vain 
does  it  strive  to  throw  off  that  weight.  In  vain  its 
fervent  labors  for  truth,  order  and  peace.  Its  preach- 
ing is  powerless  and  ineffectual.  Why?  Because, 
while  the  early  Christians  stood  firm  in  the  certainty 
of  the  living  God,  uncertainty  is  the  inmost  soul  of 
modern  Christianity.  The  early  Christians  worked  in 
the  righteousness  of  God,  but  we  in  our  own  righteous- 
ness. There  faith — here  unfaith.  There  spirit — here 
dogma.     There  life — here  religion. 

The  certainty  of  the  living  God.  What  does  this 
mean  ?  It  means  to  understand  all  Christian  truths  as 
man's  experience  of  God.  Let  us  explain  this  state- 
ment somewhat  more  closely. 

Christianity  speaks  of  a  doctrine  of  salvation.  It 
knows  by  what  precise  steps  man  must  ascend  to  God. 
It  has  taken  centuries  of  toil  for  the  Church  to  get 
clear  on  this  doctrine.  She  has  lost  whole  nations  in 
the  struggle.  Finally  she  was  irreparably  split  in 
twain  when  the  storm-wind  of  a  new  spirit  blew 
through  her  ceremonies.  Then  the  Protestants  too  be- 
gan to  take  refuge  in  their  dogmas.  The  Protestant 
church  became  more  of  a  doctrinal  church  than  the 
Catholic  even.  Yet  in  spite  of  all,  the  two  churches 
have  more  in  common  than  they  have  in  contradiction. 
Both  teach  a  salvation  and  a  heavenly  bliss,  with  the 
way  to  reach  this  bliss ;  both  comfort,  warn,  reprove, 
condemn  and  bless;  both  speak  of  the  Gospel — but 
neither  has  the  Gospel.  For  they  both  seek  God,  while 
the  Gospel  has  Him.  Their  common  lack  is  tremend- 
ous.   They  no  longer  know  that  the  words  of  the  Gos- 


j6  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

pel  are  the  words  of  the  living  God.     Let  us  cite  a  few 
proofs  of  this. 

4- 
Jesus  promised  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  children. 
Every  simple  person  should  understand  Him.  But 
what  Christian  does  understand  Him  ?  Has  not  a  bit- 
ter strife  arisen  over  everything  that  Jesus  taught  and 
wrought  ?  Do  not  the  waves  of  a  passionate  fanaticism 
still  surge  about  the  silent  mound  of  Golgotha?  Is  not 
the  empty  grave  of  the  risen  Christ  still  the  scene  of 
the  quarrels  of  a  factional  Christianity?  The  euchar- 
ist — a  meal  of  reconciliation  once,  of  confessional  strife 
now.  Who  does  not  think,  when  he  hears  the  word 
justification,  of  the  long  and  tedious  history  of  strug- 
gle connected  with  that  word?  Who  does  not  know 
that  the  word  atonement  has  split  two  churches 
asunder?  What  is  salvation,  what  is  faith,  what  is 
Christianity?  Who  knows?  There  is  doubt  to-day 
even  over  what  the  Christian  is  to  do  in  the  world.  We 
write  and  preach  about  all  topics,  but  we  have  no  clear 
faith.  How  is  this?  It  is  because  we  do  not  under- 
stand these  doctrines  of  salvation  as  our  experiences 
of  the  living  God,  but  as  separate  portions  of  knowl- 
edge to  be  grasped  partly  by  the  intellect  and  partly 
by  the  emotions. 

We  no  longer  know  that  the  atonement  accomp- 
lished by  Jesus  means  companionship  with  God.  For 
the  apostles,  atonement  was  nothing  else  than  the  spirit 
of  God  in  the  community.  Hence  it  was  also  redemp- 
tion. To  live  with  God,  to  give  one's  self  to  him,  to 
obey  his  spirit — that  and  that  alone  was  atonement  and 
redemption.    They  called  this  experience  of  God  "re- 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  JJ 

demption"  in  distinction  from  the  kingdom  of  darkness 
that  lay  around  them.  They  called  it  "atonement"  in 
distinction  from  the  sins  that  had  dwelt  in  their  hearts. 
It  was  never  anything  else  than  life  with  God.  Their 
inner  life  was  no  mysterious  psychological  phenome- 
non, but  simply  God  Himself.  They  fought  the  battle 
of  God  when  they  withstood  sin.  They  gave  them- 
selves to  God  when  a  martyr's  death  was  their  lot. 
They  cultivated  no  special  Christianity,  spoke  of  no 
special  party.  They  were  intent  on  doing  the  works 
of  God  and  not  on  laboriously  proving  a  doctrine  of 
salvation.  They  lived  and  moved  and  had  their  being 
in  God. 

It  is  clear  that  he  who  lives  in  the  experience  of 
God  is  in  condition  to  live  a  whole  and  consistent  life. 
He  can  judge  every  experience  of  life  from  this  ex- 
perience, and  does  not  need  to  establish  any  theories  or 
systems.  He  is  not  concerned  with  fine  distinctions, 
subtilties  and  cavils.  He  does  not  speak  of  an  inner 
life  as  in  opposition  to  the  outer  one.  He  does  not 
speak  of  Christian  principles  in  distinction  from  world- 
ly principles.  He  does  not  separate  the  religious  life 
from  the  practical  life.  All  these  distinctions  are  for 
him  artificial  ones.  He  knows  the  living  God,  and 
hence  it  is  clear  for  him  that  all  realms  of  activity,  be 
they  deep  in  the  heart  or  on  the  surface  only,  be  they 
in  the  realm  of  matter  or  in  the  realm  of  spirit — are 
God's. 

5- 

The  inner  life  is  surely  a  reality.  All  that  pious 
souls  through  the  centuries  have  spoken     concerning 


78  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

their  sweet  communion  with  the  Saviour  is  not  folly 
and  self-deception. 

Who  would  dispute  all  the  sufferers  that  have 
learned  to  bear  their  sorrows  in  the  comfort  of  the 
cross ;  who  could  gainsay  all  the  poor  and  afflicted  who 
have  found  recompense  for  their  misfortunes  in  the  in- 
timate joys  of  their  faith?  Can  we  say,  Your  faith  is 
false,  your  hope  is  vain,  your  patience  is  folly?  It 
was  the  power  of  this  inner  life  that  taught  a  defence- 
less Christianity  to  submit  to  the  iron  grasp  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  and  inspired  the  first  missionaries  with 
their  message. 

Filled  with  this  life  the  Reformers  stood  out  against 
a  secularized  Church.  Protestantism  was  born  of  a 
deep  need  of  the  human  conscience — let  us  never  for- 
get that. 

We  can  understand  "conservative"  Christianity 
when  it  defends  a  system  that  has  accomplished  so 
much.  But  that  it  will  not  recognize  the  world-renew- 
ing power  of  the  spirit  that  has  animated  it,  that  it  dis- 
tinguishes so  anxiously  between  inner  and  outer,  here 
is  painful  proof  of  its  poverty  and  of  its  godlessness. 

How?  The  same  God  who  works  in  the  inmost 
hearts  of  men,  shall  He  not  also  change  the  outward 
aspect  of  man's  life?  He  who  dries  up  the  root  of  sin  in 
the  heart  by  the  power  of  His  word,  shall  He  not  also 
use  His  power  where  sin  flourishes  like  the  green  bay 
tree — in  the  industrial  world?  Does  God  distinguish 
between  inner  and  outer?  Does  not  His  energy  work 
in  every  nook  and  corner  of  His  vast  creation?  Did 
He  not  create  matter  itself  out  of  the  hidden  depths  of 
His  word?    He  spake  and  it  was  done,  He  command- 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  79 

ed  and  it  stood  fast.  Does  He  not  still  and  forever, 
out  of  His  hidden  springs  of  power,  spread  the  ma- 
jestic crown  of  the  oak  and  fashion  the  slender  stem 
of  the  pine?  And  ye  would  deny  Him  the  power  to 
burst  the  bonds  of  a  society  in  which  sin  has  bound 
men  by  a  false  tie,  and  to  create  a  new  humanity  in 
which  righteousness  dwells?  He  must  stand  quietly 
by  and  see  the  soil,  this  inexhaustible  earth  which  He 
has  given  men  for  their  joyous  occupation,  become  the 
monopoly  of  a  class  living  in  luxury,  while  their  broth- 
ers beg  bread  from  their  hands !  He  must  let  this 
madness  of  Mammon  continue  unpunished  its  desola- 
ting robbery  of  one  region  after  another ! 

Why  do  you  turn  from  these  questions  and  say: 
"They  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  Gospel  ?"  Does  not 
the  same  fire  that  consumes  the  root  consume  also  the 
branches  and  the  twigs  ?  Must  not  the  same  hand  that 
punishes  greed  punish  also  the  works  of  greed?  He 
who  condemns  the  "sin"  of  avarice,  how  can  He  be 
calmly  content  with  our  present  conditions  of  produc- 
tion? 

6. 

Here  you  interrupt  me  and  say:  "Reconciled  to 
God  the  heart  can  live  in  any  conditions.  Either — or. 
Either  Jesus  Christ  came  into  the  world  to  save  sin- 
ners and  this  salvation  appears  in  just  the  fact  that  we 
are  redeemed,  in  spite  of  the  sin-searchings,  the  suffer- 
ings, the  persecutions,  the  hunger,  the  jeopardy,  the 
sword  that  still  remains  our  portion  here — or  Jesus 
Christ  came  into  the  world  to  make  the  poor  rich,  the 
hungry  full,  and  used  the  theme  of  the  forgiveness  of 


80  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

sins  as  a  means  to  this  end."     (Nathusius,  loc.  cit.  p. 

33-) 

Thus  you  speak,  not  recognizing  how  godless  an 

utterance  you  are  thus  publishing  abroad.  Does  God 
recognize  this  "Either — or"  of  yours?  No!  That  is 
your  invention,  after  you  have  stifled  God's  living  pow- 
er in  you  and  put  in  its  place  a  comfortable  dogma — 
comfortable  for  the  rich  and  the  sated,  but  not  for  the 
poor,  to  whom  Jesus  preached  his  Gospel ! 

Your  "Either — or"  is  false.  Christ  did  not  come 
to  save  sinners  in  the  sense  in  which  you  construe  it. 
The  salvation  of  the  Gospel  is  not  merely  comfort  for 
sinners — it  is  the  possession  of  the  living  God  Himself. 
And  if  a  man's  salvation  consists  in  God  Himself  how 
can  he  escape  the  truth  that  God  is  a  whole  God  who 
works  salvation  in  every  sphere  of  life;  in  the  heart, 
indeed,  but  also  in  society? 

You  say :  "A  man  can  be  happy  even  in  the  midst 
of  evil  conditions."  No  doubt.  "I  can  do  all  things 
through  Christ  who  strengtheneth  me,"  says  St.  Paul ; 
a  man  who  nevertheless  bore  in  his  heart  the  burning 
desire  for  the  "freedom  of  the  enslaved  creature."  So 
speak  those  men  who  rejoice  in  hope  when  the  end  of 
all  things  is  near. 

But  does  the  power  to  endure  evil  prevent  us  from 
declaring  war  against  it?  And  if  the  poor  victim  him- 
self cannot  declare  this  war  against  evil,  why  do  you 
not  rise  up  for  him  as  did  the  prophets  of  old,  as  did 
Jesus  and  his  Apostles  ? 

Why  is  one  constantly  hearing  from  your  lips  the 
one  message  and  not  the  other  ?  Why  always  the  com- 
fortable, the  bourgeois  deliverance,  that  every  disturb- 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  8 1 

ance  of  our  present  social  order  is  dangerous  and  un- 
sound ;  and  never  the  sharp,  decisive  summons  that  we 
cannot  serve  God  and  Mammon?  Why  is  it  that  you 
always  console  the  poor  with  the  future  coming  of  the 
Lord,  but  never  terrify  the  rich  with  the  same  theme — 
as  Jesus  did  ?  Why  never  a  complaint  against  the  rich 
for  their  avarice,  while  you  warn  the  poor  so  solemnly 
against  covetousness  ? 

I  think  that  your  Christianity  is  a  Christianity  of 
"the  rich,  not  of  the  poor.  If  so,  it  has  no  part  with 
Jesus — for  Jesus  "preached  the  good  news  to  the 
poor." 

You  speak  of  the  "inner"  life  because  you  are  in 
darkness,  and  your  own  "inner  life"  is  darkness.  You 
have  no  power  to  transform  the  external  world  which 
God  has  given  men  for  the  scene  of  their  activities.  It 
is  because  you  do  not  know  the  living  God. 

7- 
From  the  inner  thought  bursts  the  energy  for  the 

outward  deed.  The  scientific  inventor  sits  over  his 
formulae,  thinking,  searching,  until  of  a  sudden  the 
kindling  thought  lights  up  within  him — an  inspiration. 
Then  matter,  till  then  unavailing,  begins  to  live  and  to 
form  itself  into  shapes  of  art,  into  iron  rods  and 
mighty  wheels,  till  the  finished  machine  is  there — the 
glory  of  thought.  Everywhere  matter  is  obedient  to 
thought.  Is  it  only  in  religion  that  this  is  untrue? 
Must  religion  alone  keep  the  reward  of  her  thought  in 
the  dark,  hidden  carefully  from  the  eyes  of  men,  who 
are  perishing  for  her  revelations  ?  No !  Man,  even 
religious  man,  is  no  divided  being,  bearing  two  irrecon- 
cilable natures  within  him.     What  germinates  within 


82  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

his  breast  so  marvelously  must  express  itself  in  out- 
ward action.  Soul  and  body  belong  to  one  another. 
And  the  body's  field  of  action — the  earth — God  ex- 
pressly made  subject  to  man. 

When  in  the  depth  of  your  hearts  you  pon- 
der the  mystery  of  redemption,  when  you  bow  in 
worshipful  silence  before  the  powers  of  God  which  live 
and  work  within  your  breast,  when  you  have  a  taste  of 
the  victory  over  sin  and  the  destruction  of  evil,  does 
not  this  spiritual  energy  which  fills  your  bosom  kindle 
you  to  action?  What  sort  of  salvation  is  it  that  can 
stimulate  the  fancy,  gratify  the  feelings,  strengthen  the 
will,  but  which  turns  away  in  affrighted  impotence 
when  it  sees  the  door  of  the  outer  world  open  before 
it? 

And  how  was  it  in  the  beginning  of  Christian  his- 
tory, in  that  age  to  which  you  look  back  so  willingly? 
Did  not  the  earliest  community  of  Christians  manifest 
the  energy  of  their  spiritual  life  in  the  common  posses- 
sion of  goods  among  their  members?  If  they  thought 
it  worth  while  to  leave  the  world  the  story  of  this  com- 
munity of  ownership,  can  we  see  nothing  in  it  but  a 
"touching  attempt"  to  solve  the  economic  question — 
"touching"  and  childish  because  our  superior  experi- 
ence has  long  since  taught  us  a  better  way?  A  better 
way  ?  Is  that  true  ?  Did  not  the  strong  words  of  our 
great  Reformers  attack  real  evils?  Were  they  only 
words  for  the  "inner"  life  and  not  for  a  degenerate 
social  order? 

No,  you  will  never  be  able  to  prove  that  God's 
works  avail  only  for  soul  and  feeling  and  not  for 
physical   well-being.     On  the  contrary,  God's  inmost 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  83 

plans  are  for  the  eventual  glory  of  the  physical.  "The 
end  of  God's  ways  is  a  physical  order,"  says  Oetinger, 
whom  you  reckon  as  one  of  yours. 

Open  your  Bible.  Every  page  will  teach  you  that 
God  sees  the  proof  of  obedience  to  His  will  in  the  out- 
ward circumstances  of  life,  in  the  way  in  which  men 
deal  with  the  laws  of  the  external  world,  which  has 
been  confided  to  them.  You  will  see  that  God  cares 
nothing  for  a  piety  that  lifts  its  hands  in  prayer  to 
heaven  but  is  indifferent  to  the  weal  or  woe  of  the 
poor.  The  injustice  against  which  his  prophets  con- 
tended consisted  not  simply  in  evil  thoughts,  but  in 
"economic"  deeds.  "Woe  unto  them,"  cries  Isaiah, 
"who  join  house  to  house  and  field  to  field  until  there 
is  no  room  left  and  they  possess  the  land  alone." 
(Is.  5,8.) 

How  many  of  those  who  are  zealous  for  the  "in- 
ward Christianity"  are  under  this  curse,  in  these  days 
of  unlimited  land- speculation  ?  Only  they  are  too  con- 
templatively pious  to  notice  it!  Was  it  not  just  the 
contemplative  piety  of  the  middle  ages  that  led  to  that 
frightful  rule  of  Mammon,  which  from  the  throne  of 
the  vicar  of  Christ — of  that  poor  Jesus,  who  had  not 
where  to  lay  his  head — extended  its  grim  scepter  over 
lands  and  people?  Is  not  the  "inwardness"  of  our  mod- 
ern Christianity  to  blame  for  the  odious  hypocrisy 
which  ,  like  stagnant  marsh  water,  poisons  the  mead- 
ows of  our  religious  and  ecclesiastical  life? 

Is  not  the  Christian  Church  marked  with  a  stigma 
of  disgrace  because  it  has  a  fine  understanding  of  ma- 
terial relations  when  there  is  a  question  of  receiving 
something,  but  none  when  the  oppressed  poor  cry  to 


84  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

it?  If  property  is  only  a  side  issue,  why  then  so 
many  avaricious  and  greedy  priests,  so  many  Christian 
speculators  and  swindlers  ? 

Would  party  hatred  and  strife  be  so  great  in  the 
Christian  community  to-day,  would  doctrines  and  opin- 
ions play  so  important  a  part,  would  folly  and  super- 
stition so  cast  their  broad  shadows  over  the  Church, 
if  the  Church  had  paid  better  attention  to  material 
things  ? 

Instead  of  quarreling  over  things  that  no  one  under- 
stands anyway,  instead  of  making  conscience  of  ques- 
tions that  no  one  is  able  to  solve,  we  ought  to  unite  in 
some  great  common  action.  And  where  else  could  we 
find  our  efforts  so  beneficial  as  just  in  the  outward  life, 
the   bodily   condition  of  men? 

But  we  cannot  do  this.  We  are  so  used  to  speak- 
ing of  the  insignificance  of  earthly  conditions.  This  is 
a  very  convenient  excuse  to  cover  our  own  weakness. 
We  have  no  power.  If  we  had,  the  dark  lairs  (called 
dwellings)  where  we  lodge  our  workers  after  we  have 
worn  them  weary  in  the  toil  for  Mammon,  would  soon 
be  lighted  with  God's  sun ;  the  daily  anxiety  of  the 
drudging  masses  who  know  not  when  the  hour  of 
destruction  will  strike  for  them  would  be  turned  into 
joy.  For  then  we  should  have  a  heart  for  them,  and 
that  would  mean  that  we  regarded  their  bodies  as  well 
as  their  souls. 

But  our  Christianity  hinders  us  from  this,  our 
Christianity  which  makes  us  point  the  poor  sufferers 
to  the  other  world  while  we  continue  to  distress  them 
here. 

Even  if  God  is  soon  to  open  to  them  the  gates  of 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  85 

heaven  and  "wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes" — 
why,  O  Christians,  do  you  not  give  them  houses  and 
gardens  here,  in  which  they  may  refresh  themselves 
with  a  faint  foretaste  of  the  bountiful  joys  you  prom- 
ise them  above? 

Ah,  it  is  so  easy  to  promise  the  future — so  hard  to 
make  things  right  here ! 

To  be  sure,  many  Christians  are  honestly  concern- 
ed to  help  the  poor.  The  long  roll  of  institutions  of 
Christian  charity,  strung  like  a  necklace  of  pearls 
through  the  dark  centuries  of  human  misery,  witness- 
es that  the  power  of  divine  love  is  not  yet  extinguish- 
ed in  our  Christianity.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  do  not 
these  very  works  of  charity  confess  their  impotence 
to  the  sufferers,  do  they  not  all  say  that  what  they  do 
is  all  that  can  be  done?  They  would  like  very  much 
to  expand  and  to  spread,  but  they  do  not  know  of  any 
other  and  completer  help. 

And  yet  this  is  too  little.  What  kind  of  love  is  it 
which  can  bind  up  wounds  only,  but  cannot  prevent 
them ;  what  kind  of  pity  is  it  that  cuts  off  branches  of 
the  tree  of  poison  but  dares  not  touch  the  roots? 
What  kind  of  faith  is  it  that  declares  inviolable  the 
inhuman  conditions  of  production  which  have  created 
the  rule  of  Mammon,  and  contents  itself  with  soften- 
ing in  some  degree  the  results  of  these  conditions? 

Is  it  not  true  that  the  same  men  who  contribute 
out  of  their  superfluity  considerable  sums  to  these 
works  of  Christian  piety,  are  bringing  into  existence 
in  their  business  life  the  very  evils  they  are  helping  to 
relieve? 

Are  not  all  the  frightful  physical  and  moral  evils, 


86  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

the  thousand  wounds  from  which  our  body  social  is 
bleeding,  the  results  of  this  system  of  production? 

I  know  well  that  the  sins  of  the  poor  do  much  to 
aggravate  the  evil,  and  that  workmen  who  toil  with 
unsparing  energy  for  their  bit  of  bread  can  ordinarily 
make  out  a  living — provided  that  they  follow  your 
kind  advice  and  do  not  raise  too  many  children.  But 
have  those  who  profit  by  a  mode  of  production  which 
creates  so  many  causes  of  sinning  the  right  to  remind 
the  workers  of  their  sins?  Do  such  reproofs  come 
with  a  good  grace  from  those  who  allow  themselves 
such  ample  dispensation  from  the  counsels  of  dili- 
gence, moderation  and  economy  they  so  eloquently 
preach  to  the  poor? 

8. 

"But,"  you  say,  "avarice  now  reigns  throughout 
the  world.  The  world  will  not  put  away  its  sin  and 
corruption.  Human  relations  will  not  change  until  the 
judgment  day  dawns."  I  have  often  heard  you  speak 
such  words.  Permit  me  to  reply  that  I  can  see  nothing 
in  them  but  loss  of  faith,  loss  of  God. 

Are  we  not  Christ's  witnesses  on  earth?  Should 
we  not  bear  his  cross  and  for  his  will  suffer  even  per- 
secution and  death?  Did  he  not  set  himself  in 
square  opposition  to  the  spirit  of  this  world?  Else 
why  the  cross?  Is  faith  in  Christ  simply  to  comfort 
oneself  in  the  midst  of  sin  and  to  hope  for  the  heav- 
enly home?  Were  not  the  powers  of  heaven  revealed 
in  him?  Said  he  not  that  he  was  come  to  bring 
life,  and  to  bring  it  more  abundantly?  Shall  he  not 
save  the  world?     Does  he  not  set  God  over  against 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  87 

Mammon,  the  prince  of  the  worldly  system?  Is  his 
love  only  a  gentle  breeze,  or  is  it  the  flaming-  fire 
which  John  the  Baptist  saw  approaching  to  burn  up 
the  chaff? 

To  believe  in  Jesus  means  to  say  to  sin,  Thou  must 
cease !  and  to  evil,  Thou  must  fall ! 

To  believe  in  Jesus  means  to  protest  against  the 
powers  that  are  hostile  to  him. 

To  believe  in  Jesus  means  to  be  found  in  the  power 
of  the  living  God,  the  God  who  is  coming,  who  is 
bringing  on  the  times  of  his  righteousness. 

To  believe  in  Jesus  means  to  be  ardent  for  the 
right  against  all  injustice ;  to  attack  evil  at  its  roots 
without  considerations  of  utility  or  inability.  It 
means  to  make  the  impossible  true,  the  unattainable 
possible,  the  unrealized  actual.  For  Jesus  "makes  all 
things  new."  Jesus  has  imparted  to  men  the  faith  in 
the  Kingdom  of  heaven  upon  earth.  What  kind  of 
Jesus  would  he  be  who  should  accept  as  his  last  word 
the  ideals  of  our  church? 

To  believe  in  Jesus  means  to  love.  But  love  burns 
and  glows.     God  is  love,  and  God  is  a  consuming  fire. 

But  again  you  say:  "The  Gospel  addresses  itself 
to  the  hearts  of  men  and  not  to  their  material  condi- 
tions. It  makes  all  things  new  from  the  heart  out." 
I  answer:     Ye  know  not  what  ye  say. 

When  are  hearts  the  more  shaken,  when  one  shows 
the  inward  or  the  outward  significance  of  sin?  the 
evil  thoughts  or  the  dreadful  consequences? 

Is  not  the  reason  why  the  Social  Democracy  has 
spoken  so  clearly  to  the  hearts  of  the  people  that  it 


88  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

has  not  scrupled  to  attack  evil  at  its  roots ;  so  that  even 
those  who  thought  they  had  no  need  of  the  Social 
Democracy  are  coming  into  its  fold?  What  does  it 
mean  to  say,  "Our  gospel  is  not  for  the  outward  but 
for  the  inward  man?"  Does  there  not  lie  hidden  in 
this  untenable,  godless  distinction  the  bitter  confes- 
sion that  our  Christianity  is  exhausted,  that  it  has  no 
further  power  of  deed,  no  spirit,  no  God? 

"We,  too,"  so  you  say,  "hope  for  a  final  transfig- 
uration of  human  affairs,  but  we  are  not  allowed  to 
set  a  hand  to  it  ourselves,  we  must  wait  till  God  ac- 
complishes it  through  His  spirit."  So  you  speak,  and 
shut  your  eyes  to  what  God  has  already  begun  to  do. 

For  there  is  a  stirring  in  the  masses ;  there  is  a 
light  and  a  glow  in  the  depths.  Flames  are  bursting 
forth.  The  lowly  are  raising  themselves  from  the 
dust,  and  the  mighty  are  trembling  in  their  seats.  Has 
this  come  to  pass  without  God,  this  which  agrees  so 
closely  with  His  word?  You  think  God's  hand  is  not 
in  this  movement,  simply  because  the  movement  has 
gotten  out  of  your  own  hands.  You  surmise  that 
God  reveals  himself  only  in  the  way  your  own  piety 
can  conceive.  But  what  does  the  Almighty  care  about 
your  Christianity,  so  long  as  you  are  simply  shielding 
your  own  impotence  behind  this  name? 

Yes,  God  is  speaking  to-day.  God  is  working 
miracles,  but  of  a  different  kind  from  what  your  tra- 
ditional Christian  formulas  and  your  "inward"  piety 
can  understand — mightier,  more  elemental,  more  real. 
For  God  is  a  God  of  reality.  His  life  cannot  be 
woven  out  of  systems  of  doctrine.  He  is  bound  to 
no  one.     As  He  once  left  His  disobedient  people  and 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  89 

appealed  to  the  Gentiles  who  knew  Him  not,  so  can  He 
to-day.  "Or  is  God  the  God  of  the  Jews  alone  ?  Nay, 
also  of  the  Gentiles."     (Rom.  3.) 

Is  He  the  God  of  the  Christians  alone?  Nay,  also 
of  the  Social  Democrats.  He  gives  His  Spirit  to 
whomsoever  He  will.    Let  not  the  Church  forget  that. 

9. 

"But  the  Social  Democrats  are  the  enemies  of  the 
Church,  they  blaspheme  the  Holy  One!"  Even  thus 
did  the  Jews  speak  of  Jesus,  and  later  of  Paul.  Thus 
spoke  the  priests  when  the  Reformers  arose.  Thus 
the  official  Church  has  always  spoken. 

You  wonder  at  the  enmity  of  the  Social  Demo- 
crats. But  has  not  the  Church  ever  since  there  were 
Social  Democrats  always  preached  against  them  ?  Did 
not  the  Church  itself  prejudice  the  minds  of  the  people 
against  the  Social  Democrats  by  unceasing  charges  of 
godlessness  and  of  peril  to  society — even  before  society 
had  time  to  test  the  character  of  the  Social  Demo- 
crats? As  long  as  the  Social  Democrats  were  insig- 
nificant and  without  influence  the  Church  showed 
them  a  scornful  neglect ;  but  when  they  began  to  ap- 
pear as  a  power  on  the  scene  the  Church  visited  them 
with  passionate  condemnation.  For  decades  the 
Church  had  nothing  but  profound  contempt  for  these 
"foes  of  religion  and  morality" ;  and  even  to-day  it 
esteems  nothing  a  greater  disgrace  than  for  one  of  its 
ministers  to  go  over  to  the  Social  Democrats.  And 
then  you  wonder  that  the  Social  Democrats  (who  do 
not  yet  expressly  read  in  their  Gospel  the  rule  to  re- 
pay evil  with  good)   pay  like  for  like!     The  Social 


90  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

Democracy  claims  to  be  only  an  "economic"  phenom- 
enon. Why  has  the  Church  so  hastily,  so  persistently, 
so  unfairly  emphasized  in  it  what  is  the  merest  side 
issue — its  atheism?  Why  is  it  that  the  Church  rises 
up  as  a  champion  for  God  as  soon  as  others  deny  him, 
but  on  its  own  ground  behaves  as  though  God  were 
only  a  word?  Perhaps  God  is  but  a  word  for  the 
Church ! 

We  will  not  enter  into  the  past  history  of  the 
Church  to  show  how  toward  the  end  of  the  middle 
ages  the  Church  had  become  only  a  house  of  merchan- 
dise and  a  den  of  thieves.  Others  have  done  that 
sufficiently.  We  shall  confine  ourselves  to  the  present 
situation  of  the  Church. 

And  here  we  find  that  the  Church,  Catholic  and 
Protestant,  is  dominated  by  the  spirit  of  Mammon. 

Look  at  the  attitude  of  the  Church  toward  the  rich 
and  powerful  and  compare  the  treatment  it  gives  to 
the  poor  and  lowly — and  then  say  whether  we  are 
right  or  not  in  our  criticism.  The  rich  pay  large  con- 
tributions to  the  Church,  the  poor  little  or  none.  Hence 
the  ecclesiastical  authorities  defer  to  the  rich  and 
despise  the  poor.  The  rich  have  everywhere  the  best 
seats  in  the  churches,  the  poor  may  sit  where  they 
can.  A  small  matter  perhaps,  but  an  apostle  of  the 
Lord  thought  it  a  fault  to  be  denounced.     (James  2, 

3.) 

When  a  rich  man  leaves  the  Church  they  do  their 

very  best  to  keep  him,  no  matter  how  little  he  may 

share  the   faith   of  the   Church;  but  if  a  poor  man 

goes  they  take  no  notice  of  it,  however  respectable  his 

reasons.    Anyone  who  will  examine  the  conduct  of  the 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  9I 

churches  in  this  matter  will  see  that  these  assertions 
are  incontrovertible. 

The  Church  is  afraid  of  men,  and  does  not  dare 
longer  to  preach  the  truth  to  them  in  freedom.  It  is 
disturbed  when  it  offends  and  it  shuns  any  extreme 
phrase,  any  thorough  word.  Why?  It  fears  for  its 
standing,  its  respectability,  its  money.  There  are 
honorable  exceptions  still,  thank  God,  but  the  great 
majority  of  church  leaders  cannot  escape  these 
charges. 

How  humiliating  is  the  conduct  of  most  clergymen 
before  the  rich  and  the  powerful !  What  flattery, 
what  cowardly  silence,  what  impotence  and  lack  of 
character !  The  rich  man  is  courted  by  the  Church. 
Dignities  and  offices  are  forced  upon  him  and  the 
Church  considers  itself  honored  by  his  acceptance, 
however  harsh  his  daily  conduct  to  his  employes,  how- 
ever unjust  he  may  be  toward  his  subordinates,  how- 
ever sharp  his  business  practices.  His  money  shields 
and  protects  him.  There  are  too  many  examples  of 
this. 

The  Church  obeys  the  caprice  of  the  world's  rul- 
ers without  the  twitching  of  an  eyelid.  It  stood  be- 
hind the  English  government  with  hands  uplifted  in 
prayer  when  in  the  interests  of  Mammon  alone  Eng- 
land disgraced  her  name  by  unchaining  dreadful  war 
in  South  Africa.  And  when  the  Russian  czar  sent  up 
his  prayer  to  God  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  with 
Japan,  the  Church  prayed  with  him.  The  Church  is 
in  the  hands  of  the  worldly  powers.  It  turns  the 
gospel,  which  is  a  gospel  for  mankind,  into  a  tool  of 
policy  for  this  or  that  country.     It  stands  no  longer 


92  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

for  eternal  ends  but  for  earthly  policies.  It  is  a 
national  Church  above  all — a  Swiss  or  German  or 
French  or  Russian  or  English  Church.  And  then,  in 
the  last  instance,  a  Church  of  God ! 

The  Church  serves  not  God  but  Mammon.  And 
do  we  wonder  that  the  Social  Democrats  want  nothing 
of  such  a  Church?  Should  we  not  see  in  this  a  sign 
of  their  truth  and  vitality? 

10. 

Under  the  scepter  of  Mammon,  the  gospel  has 
transformed  itself  into  empty  doctrine  and  system. 
If  the  main  endeavor  of  the  Church  to-day  is  to  hold 
fast  to  the  established  order  of  society,  must  not  the 
truths  of  the  gospel,  which  were  spoken  against  Mam- 
mon and  in  the  interests  of  the  new  world  of  God, 
shrink  into  mere  pious  words,  with  which  a  compli- 
ant Church  seeks  to  legitimize  its  position  in  the 
world  but  does  not  bring  spirit  and  life  to  the  hearts 
of  men?  And  has  it  not  been  true  for  a  long  while 
that  the  gospel  serves  the  Church  only  as  an  excuse 
for  an  entirely  different  activity? 

What  does  the  Church  in  its  security  care  for  the 
real  meaning  of  the  gospel?  Long  since  it  turned 
that  meaning  into  a  harmless  exercise  of  worship  and 
it  neither  can  nor  will  understand  that  the  gospel  is 
diametrically  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  this  world. 

So  the  Church  is  very  zealous  with  the  expenditure 
of  all  its  logic  and  the  art  of  its  theological  theories 
and  practical  charities  to  win  for  the  gospel  as  large 
a  place  in  the  commercial  world  as  it  can  and  to  ac- 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  93 

commodate  its  truth  to  the  apprehension  of  the  "nat- 
ural man,"  the  commercial-minded  man. 

The  consequence  of  this  must  be  either  that  the 
contents  of  the  gospel  are  no  longer  taken  in  earnest 
or  that  they  are  converted  into  a  system  of  dogmas 
and  theories,  while  fresh,  new,  progressive  movements 
provoke  no  response  but  distrust.  The  spiritual 
power  of  the  gospel,  now  that  the  Church  has  belied 
its  own  original  purpose,  is  used  only  to  keep  people 
submissive ;  and  thus,  under  the  patronage  of  the 
Church,  the  paradox  has  actually  come  to  pass  that  a 
power  which  was  destined  above  all  to  bring  about 
the  downfall  of  the  existing  order  has  been  turned  into 
its  chief  defense,  and  that  the  gospel  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God  has  become  the  strongest  bulwark  against 
that  kingdom — the  good  news  of  the  living  God  has 
become  the  indispensable  ally  of  his  enemy  Mammon. 

The  Church  has  become  reactionary  because  it  no 
longer  wills  to  advance.  It  cannot  disappear  in  the 
general  advance  of  civilizations,  as  some  other  institu- 
tions do ;  it  has  too  much  of  its  original  truth  left  for 
that.  It  belongs  at  the  head  of  the  column  of  prog- 
ress; and  because  it  will  not  take  its  rightful  place 
there,  it  hinders  the  march.  This  has  been  the  great 
cause  of  reproach  against  the  Church  from  early  times. 

As  we  have  already  said,  the  roles  have  changed; 
what  the  Church  should  be  doing  in  the  fight  against 
Mammon,  the  enemies  of  the  Church  are  doing  to- 
day— the  Social  Democrats.  The  Church  no  longer 
apprehends  the  living  God ;  the  Social  Democrats  do. 
But    the    Church    confesses    God,    hence    the    Social 


94  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

Democrats  deny  him.  Because  they  will  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  empty  words,  theories  and  systems,  but 
only  with  deeds,  they  have  to  deny  the  God  who  is 
presented  to  them  only  as  the  author  of  a  pious  dogma. 
They  see  the  Church  which  confesses  God  serving 
Mammon.  They  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  such  a 
God  because  they  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  Mam- 
mon. The  time  will  come  when  their  "atheism"  will 
prove  to  have  been  the  hidden  confession  of  the  living 
God. 

ii. 

Conservative  Christianity,  the  chief  reliance  of 
every  Church,  and  the  Social  Democracy  stand  dia- 
metrically opposed  to  each  other.  And  between  them 
stands  a  Christianity  which  seeks  to  take  the  "prac- 
tical" in  each  and  to  bring  them  together  in  a  renewal 
of  the  life  of  society — this  is  the  Christian  Social  Re- 
form movement.  The  Christian  Social  Reformers 
break  away  from  the  more  offensive  dogmatic  and 
ethical  points  of  conservative  Christianity  and  ap- 
proach as  nearly  as  they  may  to  the  Social  Democratic 
position — an  impossible  compromise  which  will  only 
lead  to  their  being  crushed  out  between  the  mill- 
stones of  the  two  parties. 

What  has  been  the  net  result  of  the  loyal  and 
ardent  work  of  a  Naumann  ?  Practically  nothing.  The 
Christian  Social  Reformers  have  accomplished  nothing, 
and  to-day  they  have  nothing  but  a  bare  hope  of  a 
future  victory — a  deceitful  hope,  like  all  those  that 
spring  from  despair.     Why? 

The  Christian  Social  Reformers  do  not  know  what 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  95 

is  at  stake  in  the  social  question.  They  see  in  it  only 
a  symptom  of  dissatisfaction  arising  from  the  denial 
of  just  and  pressing  demands,  a  dissatisfaction  which 
Christianity  has  to  reason  with,  and  which  can  be 
removed  by  rational  and  practicable  reinterpretation 
of  gospel  maxims.  They  quite  overlook  the  divine 
element  in  the  Social  Democracy. 

"What  constitutes  the  chief  fault  of  the  Social 
Democracy?"  says  Naumann.  "This,  that  it  is  doc- 
trinaire in  character,  a  system  of  universal  claims. 
The  Social  Democracy  is  a  posthumous  child  of  Hegel, 
an  offspring  of  the  absolutist  philosophy.  As  such  it 
knows  nothing  of  the  living  God,  or  of  the  living  peo 
pie.  In  the  place  of  God  it  has  put  the  development 
of  machinery,  in  the  place  of  the  people  the  proletariat 
— two  conceptions  in  the  place  of  two  life  powers.  * 
*  *  *  fhg  Social  Democracy  is  hard  and  thin  in 
spirit.  In  spite  of  all  its  flourishing  of  the  red,  it  is 
pale  and  wan.  *  *  *  It  feeds  the  people  with 
theories  of  political  economy,  that  is  with  dogmas. 
But  dogmas  come  and  go ;  no  system  is  eternal.  And 
when  this  theory  or  that  has  passed,  the  heart  of 
man  will  still  be  the  same,  and  will  thirst  for  its  God. 
And  the  ancient  longings  of  the  human  soul  will  not 
be  stifled  by  big  words — organization,  production 
and  consumption ;  and  the  poor  rationalism  of  the 
Social  Democracy  cannot  understand  how,  after  thirty 
years  of  its  agitation,  there  are  still  human  hearts 
that  regard  God  as  something  more  than  a  priest's 
hoax.  We  have  to  take  up  the  economic  question  just 
at  the  point  where  the  Social  Democrats  leave  it. 
They  theorize,  we  must  do  the  work;  they  are  always 


g6  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

intent  on  society  as  a  whole,  we  must  think  of  the 
groups  which  compose  this  society,  the  unemployed, 
the  day  laborer,  the  factory  worker,  the  farmer,  the 
artisan,  the  merchant,  the  clerk.  The  new  world-view 
whose  dawn  is  even  now  breaking  upon  us  must  con- 
tain both  economic  and  religious  traits,  and  these 
traits  must  be  in  harmonious  agreement."  (What  is 
Christian  Social  Reform?    Vol.  I,  p.  5,  6.) 

We  maintain  that  nearly  every  word  of  this  exposi- 
tion is  false.  In  proof  let  us  take  the  sayings, 
"The  Social  Democrats  theorize;"  "they  are  always 
intent  on  society  as  a  whole."  But,  allowing  the  state- 
ments as  correct  on  the  surface,  Naumann  entirely  for- 
gets the  great  motive  force  behind  this  theorizing.  To 
stigmatize  a  great  movement  such  as  the  Social  De- 
mocracy, which,  like  the  waves  of  the  ocean,  is  assault- 
ing every  hitherto  intact  shore,  with  such  terms  as 
theorizing  barrenness,  doctrinaire  futility,  or  Hegelian 
metaphysics,  is  a  doubly  astonishing  error  in  a  man  so 
free  from  prejudices  as  Naumann.  But  Naumann 
here  shuts  his  eyes  to  a  great  fact  in  order  not  to  bring 
his  own  party  into  disrepute.  He  will  not  listen  to 
the  protestation — made  as  it  is  a  thousand  times  by 
the  Social  Democrats  themselves — that  the  theorizing, 
the  system,  the  philosophy,  all  this  is  only  a  second- 
ary matter  in  the  Social  Democracy. 

It  is  true  that  Marx  developed  a  theory  of  eco- 
nomic conditions  and  of  the  progress  of  human  so- 
ciety on  the  lines  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy;  if  he 
spoke  of  the  dialectic  process  which  logically  led  to  the 
conversion  of  private  production  into  social  produc- 
tion, it  is  not  to     these  uncertain     theories  that  the 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  OJ 

Social  Democratic  movement  owes  its  existence,  but 
rather  contrariwise :  because  ideas  of  social  production 
and  the  like  had  long  been  fermenting  in  men's  minds. 
Marx  was  captivated  by  them  and  tried  to  incorporate 
them  in  a  logical  completeness  into  an  economic  philo- 
sophic system.  How  little  the  younger  groups  of 
Social  Democrats  hold  to  this  system  Naumann  him- 
self has  had  ample  opportunity  to  see  in  the  recent 
opposition  to  Marx  in  the  Social  Democratic  party. 
Think,  for  example,  of  the  publications  of  Bernstein, 
or  of  books  like  David's  Land  Husbandry  and  the  So- 
cial Democracy,  a  book  in  which  Marx's  theories  are 
quite  set  aside,  and  in  their  place  postulates  are  stated 
with  which  Naumann's  party  could  agree  in  nearly 
every  point.  To  be  sure,  David's  book  had  not  ap- 
peared at  the  time  Naumann  wrote  the  passage  we 
have  just  quoted,  but  even  then  it  was  clear  enough 
that  the  "system"  or  "philosophy"  of  the  Social 
Democracy  was  only  a  concomitant  and  not  the  heart 
of  the  matter.  Naumann  did  not  want  to  see  this, 
because  he  wanted  to  safeguard  his  position  as  over 
against  the  Social  Democracy,the  position  which  he  de- 
fines in  the  words  following:  "We  must  think  of  the 
groups  which  compose  this  society,  the  unemployed, 
the  day  laborer,  the  factory  worker,  the  farmer,  the 
artisan,  the  merchant,  the  clerk." 

We  now  ask:  Is  this  limitation  of  one's  efforts 
to  the  immediate,  pressing  social  tasks,  this  work  for 
the  individual,  which  Naumann  claims  as  the  virtuous 
mark  of  his  party,  really  a  different  aim  from  that  of 
the  Social  Democracy?    Do  the  great  ends  which  the 


98  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

latter  pursues  exclude  or  include  the  smaller  ends  of 
temporary  help?* 

And  if  the  most  extreme  champions  of  the  Social 
Democracy,  like  Kautsky,  for  example,  maintain  to- 
day that  there  is  danger  that  the  work  of  detail  may 
distract  the  attention  of  the  party  from  the  great  ends 
to  be  accomplished,  this  does  not  mean  that  the  Social 
Democrats  absolutely  refuse  to  undertake  such  imme- 
diate aid.  It  is  but  the  warning  not  to  lose  sight  of  the 
great  ideal  through  too  concentrated  attention  on 
matters  of  present  detail.  Indeed,  I  have  not  seen 
a  single  phrase  in  the  whole  literature  of  the  So- 
cial Democracy  in  which  the  immediate  work  of  de- 
tail is  condemned  in  and  of  itself,  apart,  that  is,  from 
its  relation  to  the  great  ends  of  the  party.  Whoever 
devotes  himself  to  such  cases,  provided  he  keeps  in 
sight  the  great  aims  of  the  party  as  well,  is  welcome 
in  the  Social  Democratic  camp — even  if  he  cherishes  a 
philosophy  which  differs  in  many  points  from  the 
"theories"  of  the  Social  Democracy.  So  the  antithesis 
which  Naumann  invents — on  the  one  side  hard,  bar- 
ren logic-mongering,  on  the  other  side  the  practical 
recognition  of  immediate  and  pressing  tasks — is  in- 
considerate, false,  unjust.  Rut  Naumann  has  an  inter- 
est to  serve  in  phrasing  the  matter  as  he  does,  and 
this  leads  us  a  step  farther. 

12. 

Naumann  gives  his  Christian  Social  Reform  party, 
or,  as  he  calls  it  later  in  opposition  to  Stoecker's  conser- 

*The  great  ends  include  the  temporary  help.  See  last 
paragraph  but  one  of  the  Preface  by  the  American  Editor. 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  99 

vatism,  his  National  Social  Reform  party,  a  distinctly 
Christian  basis.  In  the  name  of  Christianity  he  combats 
determinedly,  even  if  not  harshly,  the  atheism  of  the 
Social  Democrats.  Inspired  with  a  joyful  optimism  he 
sees  the  triumph  of  Christian  Social  Reform  approach- 
ing: "We  feel,"  says  he,  "that  it  is  not  we  who  pos- 
sess the  Christian  Social  idea;  it  is  the  Christian  So- 
cial idea  that  possesses  us.  It  compels  us,  it  lifts  us, 
it  bears  us  on.  It  makes  us  put  forth  all  our  efforts, 
and  it  fills  us  with  the  intensest  emotions.  It  masters 
us  as  both  power  and  grace.  We  are  forced  to  feel 
that  God  is  working  within  us,  as  He  worked  in  the 
prophets  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  inward  impulse, 
sure  of  itself,  must  be  there  when  any  great  work  is 
to  be  accomplished.  It  is  our  task  to  find  the  notes 
to  the  spring  song  which  fills  our  soul." 

To  be  sure,  he  confesses  that  the  immediate  future 
is  for  the  Social  Democracy:  "The  Christian  Social 
era  will  come  only  after  the  epoch  of  the  Social 
Democracy."  But  still  it  will  come  with  certain  and 
irresistible  march.  "As  the  Social  Democracy  has  in- 
herited all  that  liberalism  has  won,  so  will  the  Chris- 
tian Social  movement  inherit  all  that  the  Social  Democ- 
racy shall  win."  (IV hat  is  Christian  Social  Reform? 
Vol.  I,  p.  2,  3.) 

This  approaching  form  of  Christianity  is  depicted 
on  the  model  of  patch- work.  Naumann  says :  "Jesus  is 
the  source  of  bodily  well-being,  his  spirit  is  a  stream 
of  healthful  will.  He  appeared  as  a  light  for  the 
poor  who  sat  in  darkness ;  and  where  he  stretches 
forth  his  hand  the  human  race  is  cured.  Soul  and 
body  alike  find  healing  in  this  divine  source.     This 


100  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

Jesus,  whom  the  first  three  Evangelists  describe,  this 
real  Jesus  in  word  and  deed,  will  be  discovered  by  the 
people  when  they  have  awakened  from  the  sleep  of 
materialism.  We  must  keep  him  in  the  clear  light 
until  the  day  of  the  people's  awakening;  that  is  the 
duty  of  us  Social  Christians.  *  *  *  It  is  not 
theories  that  we  want,  but  life.  Even  in  religion  we 
will  leave  dogmas  to  the  expert  theologian  and  our- 
selves live  with  Jesus.  Our  religion  shall  be  to  hold 
the  same  attitude  toward  poor  and  rich,  toward  master 
and  servant,  toward  righteous  and  wicked,  toward 
sound  and  sick,  toward  time  and  eternity,  toward  God 
and  the  world,  as  Jesus  did.  Jesus  placed  himself  on 
a  level  with  the  lowliest  of  his  brethren.  He  knows 
of  but  one  question  to  be  asked  at  the  last  judgment: 
Have  ye  fed  the  hungry,  given  the  thirsty  to  drink, 
clothed  the  naked,  sheltered  the  homeless,  cared  for 
the  sick,  visited  those  that  are  in  prison?  They  who 
have  not  done  these  things  have  not  served  Christ, 
and  they  belong  in  the  everlasting  fire  prepared  for 
the  devil  and  his  angels.  Behold  the  basis  of  Chris- 
tian work  for  the  people !  We  must  learn  to  look  at 
everything  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  hungry.  No 
heart  can  cling  to  its  possessions  and  be  saved.  Gold 
can  never  be  the  standard  of  value  of  a  man." 

"But,"  says  Naumann  further,  "Jesus  is  not  a 
communist.  He  has  no  idea  of  taking  from  the  fish- 
ermen of  Galilee  the  ownership  of  their  boats  and 
houses.  He  only  forbids  the  superfluity  of  posses- 
sions, and  teaches  that  all  possessions  belong  to  God 
and  are  only  entrusted  to  men  for  their  use.  Jesus 
would  have  need,  suffering  and  sin  lessened.     There- 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  10 1 

fore,  his  miracles  and  his  alms.  We  have  to  use  dif- 
ferent means  from  these,  but  our  object  is  the  same. 
That  object  is  the  constant  aim  of  Christianity.  The 
earth  must  be  warmed  through  the  warmth  of  heaven, 
and  one  source  of  distress  and  misery  after  another 
must  vanish."     (Ibid,  pp.  8,  9,  10.) 

These  are,  to  be  sure,  high  and  noble  thoughts. 
It  is  an  excellent  estimate  of  Christianity,  but  it  deals 
only  with  detail  and  specific  cases.  There  is  some- 
thing lacking  in  Naumann's  program,  namely,  an  in- 
tegrating principle  of  orientation,  a  fundamental  unity. 
The  end  of  the  gospel  itself  is  lacking — in  a  word,  the 
divine,  the  absolute.  In  the  eyes  of  Naumann,  Jesus 
is  always  and  forever  the  opposite  of  misery.  He  is 
only  helper,  savior,  deliverer  from  firmly  settled  evil, 
in  a  world  which  through  his  leadership  is  only  ap- 
proaching, never  fully  realizing  completeness.  He 
"would  have  need,  suffering  and  sin  lessened." 

But  that  is  not  the  whole  Jesus  as  the  gospels  give 
him  to  us.  It  is  not  just  to  bring  into  relief  only  this 
alleviative  social  phase  of  his  nature  and  to  leave  the 
other  social  phase  as  a  mere  decorative  attribute. 
When  Naumann  says  that  Jesus  used  miracles  in  the 
accomplishment  of  what  he  came  to  do,  but  that  we 
"have  to  use  different  means,"  this  is  only  a  too  com- 
fortable way  of  hiding  the  difficulties,  of  concealing 
the  great  discrepancy  between  Jesus'  steadfastness  and 
the  weakness  of  will  of  the  modern  Church.  This 
treatment  leads  to  contradictions,  too,  in  Naumann's 
scheme.  For  example,  compare  this  feeble  sentiment 
with  his  former  statement  that  we  must  keep  this 
Jesus  of  the  first  three  gospels,  this  real  Jesus,  with 


102  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

all  he  said  and  did  (surely  including  miracles),  "in 
the  clear  light  until  the  day  of  the  people's  awaken- 
ing." 

But  all  this  is  only  a  secondary  consideration. 
The  great  lack  in  Naumann's  Christianity  is  its  com- 
plete unmindfulness  of  the  apocalyptic  element  in  the 
appearance  of  Jesus,  and  its  attempt  to  tit  Jesus  per- 
manently into  a  world  to  which  He  stood  in  the  sharp- 
est opposition.  Naumann  does  not  grasp  the  contra- 
diction between  Jesus  and  this  world  in  its  deep  sig- 
nificance. That  is  why  he  cannot  work  outspokenly  for 
the  overthrow  of  Mammon. 

Naumann  does  not  see  that  Mammon  and  the 
fashion  of  this  world  stand  and  fall  together.  He 
wishes  to  overthrow  Mammon  on  the  ground  of  Mam- 
mon itself,  but  that  is  a  task  as  impossible  as  pulling 
oneself  out  of  a  pit  by  one's  own  hair.  He  be- 
lieves in  a  gradual  betterment  of  things,  and  does 
not  see  that  the  new  must  produce  itself,  that  a  new 
zvorld  must  come. 

Naumann  does  not  understand  Jesus.  He  regards 
the  evil  of  this  world  as  a  great  problem  and  sum- 
mons the  whole  Jesus  in  order — to  abate  and  lessen 
it !  But  to  understand  Jesus  means  to  pay  no  regard 
to  evil,  to  conquer  it,  to  annihilate  it  in  the  strength 
of  the  living  God.  Jesus  did  not  come  to  lessen  the 
evil ;  on  the  contrary,  where  Jesus  is  there  evil  van- 
ishes. Naumann  always  makes  evil  prior  to  Jesus. 
In  reality  Jesus  is  prior  to  evil.  For  in  Jesus  is  the 
living  God.  Naumann  does  not  dare  to  embrace  this 
absolute  view  of  Jesus.  He  speaks  only  of  a  "lessen- 
ing" of  the  world's  evil.    He  starts  from  this  world  to 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  103 

arrive  at  Jesus;  but  Jesus  came  into  this  world  from 
another.    Naumann  takes  no  heed  of  that  other  world. 

13. 

In  Jesus  the  living  God  was  revealed.  This  fact 
the  Christian  Social  Reformers  have  not  understood  in 
its  critical  import.  If  God  is  worth  anything,  if  His 
Kingdom  is  coming,  how  can  we  speak  of  sin,  need, 
distress  as  of  permanent  forces  that  can  only  be  modi- 
fied? How  can  we  be  always  mulling  over  social 
riddles,  always  so  absorbed  in  all  sorts  of  practical 
questions  ? 

And  above  all,  how  can  we  make  the  Gospel,  which 
is  the  announcement  of  the  power  of  God,  merely  a 
new  yoke-horse  to  the  social  car?  The  advent  of 
the  living  God  is  still  unknown  to  the  Christian  Social 
Reform  party.  Here  lies,  in  a  single  word,  its  weak- 
ness. 

The  Christian  Social  Reformers  have  one  distinct 
advantage  over  the  conservatives — they  urge  a  work- 
ing, living  Christianity.  But  because  they  have  not 
grasped  the  full  meaning  of  such  a  Christianity  it  has 
shrunk  in  their  hands  to  a  mere  social  remedy  which 
embellishes  itself  with  the  name  Christian,  but  does 
not  know  the  substance.  Therefore  their  labor  is  in 
danger  constantly  of  sinking  into  the  sand  of  well- 
meaning  phrases  and  inoffensive  ameliorations.  It  is 
in  danger  of  stopping  progress.  As  Calwer  said  of  it 
in  his  pamphlet  on  "The  Church  in  the  Service  of 
the  Promoter,"  it  hinders  the  progress  of  trade- 
unionism  by  splitting  up  the  working  class.  Such  is 
in  fact  the  net  result  of  its  "practical"  activity. 


104  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

On  the  other  hand,  the  conservatives  have  an  in- 
disputable truth  on  their  side.  They  understand  the 
supernatural  significance  of  Jesus.  They,  at  least 
in  theory,  recognize  the  antithesis,  heaven  and  earth, 
time  and  eternity,  God  and  Mammon.  That  they  keep 
these  opposing  realities  far  asunder,  and  refuse  to 
see  how  God's  kingdom  opens  its  way  across  the 
events  of  the  world — this  is  their  grievous  fault;  and 
it  condemns  them  to  rigidity,  to  the  formalism  of 
dogma  and  ceremonial. 

But  when  the  conservatives  once  wake  from  their 
slumber  they  will  maintain  these  great,  concise  prin- 
ciples of  antithesis,  and  will  no  longer  deny  the  Social 
Democrats  their  divine  justification.  Then  the  Chris- 
tian Social  Reformers  will  disappear  from  sight. 

Each  of  the  two  parties  represents  a  part  of  the 
truth,  but  both  fail  of  the  chief  element  of  truth, 
namely,  the  knozvledge  of  the  living  God  in  the  social 
problem.  One  side  says  :  "The  kingdom  of  God  is 
still  impossible  on  earth.  When  Jesus  comes  again 
He  will  overthrow  Satan  and  make  a  new  world  out 
of  the  old."  The  other  side  says:  "We  must  not 
fix  our  view  on  the  impossible.  God's  Kingdom  is 
coming  progressively.  We  must  seize  the  practicable 
and  not  disturb  ourselves  over  the  rest."  One  side 
holds  to  a  radical  renewal — but  postpones  it  till  the 
end  of  the  world.  The  other  side  hopes  for  a  gradual 
change  of  conditions,  and  foregoes  the  outlook  on  the 
future.  The  former  have  an  apocalyptic  theory — and 
for  just  that  reason  they  are  embarrassed,  half- 
hearted, lame  and  weak  in  the  present.  The  latter 
will  hear  nothing  of  an  apocalypse,  so  that  they  may 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  105 

have  free  field  for  their  present  efforts.  Both  are 
hostile  to  the  Social  Democracy — the  former  call  it 
godless;  the  latter  impractical.  Both  are  too  blinded 
by  their  prejudices  to  see  in  it  the  hand  of  God. 

In  reality  God  is  working  neither  in  the  conserv- 
atives nor  in  the  Christian  Social  Reformers,  but  in 
the  Social  Democrats.  The  Social  Democrats  alone 
understand  that  a  new  world  must  come.  They  are 
as  active  as  the  Christian  Social  Reformers,  as  idealis- 
tic as  the  conservatives.  They  are  not  contented  with 
mere  "betterment,"  they  look  to  a  great  new  future. 
They  combine  the  features  parallel  with  those  of  both 
the  Christian  parties — faith  and  works,  prophecy  and 
practice.  They  talk  of  the  "impossible"  and  at  the 
same  time  accomplish  the  possible.  They  dream  of  an 
all-embracing  Brotherhood  and  at  the  same  time  care 
for  the  immediate  help  of  the  poor.  They  are  dream- 
ers and  fanatics  in  the  eyes  of  men,  and  yet  accom- 
plish what  none  of  the  sane  have  done.  They  are 
ridiculed  and  insulted  for  their  fanaticism,  yet  feared 
for  their  activity.  They  are  irresistible.  They  alone 
are  living,  forceful,  sound.  They  have  the  living 
God! 

Not  in  pious  formula  and  ceremony — they  do  not 
pray  to  Him;  nay!  they  deny  Him.  But  they  have 
Him  in  fact.  And  Jesus  acknowledges  as  his  not 
those  who  say,  "Lord,  Lord !"  but  those  who  do  the 
will  of  God. 

They  do  that  will.  They  resist  Mammon  and 
preach  a  new  world  of  love  for  all  men.  They  halt 
not  at  the  "impossibilities"  which  men  raise ;  they 
care  not  for  limits.     They  know  that  the  old  order 


106  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

must  fall.  They  "believe  all  things,  hope  all  things, 
endure  all  things."  This  is  their  divine  mark  and 
seal. 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  IOJ 


CHAPTER  IV. 

"THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  IS  A  REVOLUTIONARY  PARTY — 

IT    ATTEMPTS    TO    GAIN    SUPREME    CONTROL 

THROUGH    THE    OVERTHROW    OF    ALL 

EXISTING   CONDITIONS/' 

I. 

Such  is  one  of  the  complaints  against  the  Social 
Democracy.  "All  violence  is  unwholesome.  Revolu- 
tions have  never  compassed  their  ends.  The  march 
of  historic  evolution  abhors  arbitrary  attempts  at 
hastening  its  processes,  and  allows  no  violent  hand  to 
interfere  in  its  development.  It  accomplishes  the 
stages  of  evolution  quietly  and  uniformly." 

On  the  contrary  it  is  remarkable  how  the  very 
revolutionary  forces  in  the  world's  history,  how  just 
the  powers  that  have  stood  in  sharpest  opposition  to 
the  environing  conditions,  have  made  the  way  for 
progress.  Evolution  has  always  consisted  in  the 
carrying  out  of  a  revolutionary  program  on  one  hand, 
and  on  the  other  hand  the  preparation  for  a  new 
revolution.  It  moves  always  between  the  poles  of 
two  revolutions,  whose  full  truth  it  distributes  in  a 
harmonious  historical  development.  Evolution,  in  the 
sense  of  a  constant  uninterrupted  process,  does  not  ex- 
ist either  in  the  historical  or  in  the  scientific  world. 
It  is  not  historically  true  that  a  civilization  comes  out 
of  simple  beginnings  by  a  gradual,  quiet,  uninterrupted 
process  of  growth.     New  factors  burst  out  from  hid- 


108  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

den  -  sources,  unrecognized,  uncomprehended ;  they 
often  turn  the  development  of  history  into  utterly  new 
paths. 

There  are  absolute  powers  in  the  course  of  history. 
And  these  powers  are  those  which  have  to  bear  the 
reproach  of  revolution.  There  are  powers  which 
cannot  be  classified  in  the  scheme  of  evolution,  which 
mock  the  false  science  that  knows  of  evolution  alone. 

Men  do  not  wish  to  hear  of  eternal  powers.  But 
history,  which  is  both  made  and  re-made  by  these 
eternal  powers,  bears  witness  to  them.  We  need  not 
imagine  to  ourselves  any  distant,  foreign  world  in 
order  to  comprehend  these  powers.  They  reveal  them- 
selves in  the  course  of  events ;  they  show  through  all 
the  words  that  we  speak,  they  can  be  understood 
every  moment.  And  whenever  they  are  rightly  un- 
derstood and  grasped,  then  comes  a  crisis  in  the  world's 
history. 

Revolutions  in  the  real  sense  of  the  word  are  the 
uprising  of  the  world-Vulcan.  For  centuries  he 
sleeps  beside  the  eternal,  undisturbed,  indifferent ;  then 
in  a  moment  he  wakes,  grasps  the  truth,  and  holds 
it  fast.  Then  a  new  era  dawns,  a  revelation  has 
come! 

The  Eternal,  the  Absolute  must  be !  The  everlast- 
ing demands  cannot  be  denied,  cannot  be  bargained 
away ;  they  must  be  fulfilled !  The  temporal,  on  the 
other  hand,  may  constitute  itself  in  various  forms; 
it  is  alterable  and  capricious.  The  tremendous  conse- 
quences that  have  come  to  the  history  of  the  Chris- 
tian centuries  are  due  to  flashes  of  light  from  the 
eternal    world,    to   the   eternal   powers    working   and 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  IO9 

creating.  With  passionate  unrest  and  pain  our  civil- 
ization moves  forward,  driven  by  the  pulse-beat  of 
eternity. 

And  precisely  because  we  Christians  profess  to 
be  in  league  with  eternal,  absolute  powers,  does 
progress  attach  to  the  name  of  Christianity.  It  is  in 
a  certain  sense  true  that  Christianity  is  hostile  to  civ- 
ilization. It  is  true  in  the  sense  that  after  once  ac- 
cepting Christianity  men  could  never  again  be  satis- 
fied with  the  egoistic,  complacent  civilization  of  the 
old  Greek  world.  The  spirit  of  Christianity  drives 
men  from  one  level  of  civilization  to  the  next,  merci- 
lessly sacrificing  everything  that  stands  in  the  way  of 
the  development  of  moral  perfection.  It  is  not  con- 
tent with  any  state  of  affairs  that  simply  leaves  men 
in  calm  and  prosperity.  It  carries  an  irresistible  must 
in  itself,  which  sacrifices  if  necessary  the  finest 
products  of  human  culture.  It  makes  them  all  of  no 
account.  It  concerns  itself  not  mainly  with  the  mo- 
mentary happiness  of  mankind.  It  has  only  one  pas- 
sionate demand;  to  create  forms  for  the  truth  which 
must  be. 

If  we  had  not  the  must  of  Christianity  we  should 
stand  still.  We  should  sink  into  lazy  quiet  and  slow 
degeneration.  Its  absolute  demands  keep  us  sound. 
A  proof  of  how  futile  it  is  to  try  to  banish  the  eternal 
out  of  history ;  a  proof  that  man  is  only  man  when  he 
is  busy  with  the  eternal. 


The  decisive  revolutions  of  the  world's  history  are : 
the  prophecy  of  Israel,  the  advent  of  Jesus,  the  Refor- 


110  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

mation,  the  French  Revolution,  and  the  Social  Democ- 
racy. 

All  these  movements  have  the  characteristics  of 
eternal  powers  which  we  have  just  discussed;  they 
all  demand  the  eternal,  the  lasting,  in  the  midst  of 
the  passing.  They  all  set  themselves  in  stiffest  oppo- 
sition to  their  time  and  thus  inaugurate  a  new  era. 
They  all  have  a  force  in  them  which  will  not  abide 
question,  an  imperative  which  hardly  realizes  itself, 
but  which  will  and  must  create  that  to  which  it  im- 
pels. They  must!  And  all  that  the  following  age 
does  to  explain  this  "must"  in  wise  terms  of  human 
philosophy  is  no  explanation.  The  dogmatic  of  Chris- 
tianity is  altogether  a  secondary  matter  to  the  faith ; 
the  deep  philosophical  systems  of  Protestantism  are 
not  its  strength ;  the  metaphysics  of  Marx  do  not 
define  Social  Democracy.  It  has  ever  been  the  effort 
of  men  to  make  every  new  revelation  conform  to  their 
powers  of  philosophic  expression,  but  the  effort  has 
never  been  crowned  with  success,  and  has  often  been 
attended  with  calamity. 

It  is  blindness  to  blame  the  Social  Democracy  for 
being  revolutionary;  for  it  must  be  revolutionary  if 
it  is  to  fulfil  its  mission.  What  fulfils  its  mission 
must  always  be  revolutionary  for  the  environment — 
whether  the  revolution  be  accomplished  with  words, 
with  cannon  or  with  votes. 

It  is  of  a  piece  with  the  superficiality,  with  the 
lack  of  character  of  our  modern  society  that  it 
criticizes  the  externals  of  the  Social  Democracy,  and 
withal  entirely  fails  to  grasp  its  meaning,  and  so  thinks 
it  can  laugh  the  movement  to  scorn. 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  III 

What  is  meant  when  Stoecker  cries:  "The  Social 
Democracy  is  revolutionary,  violent;  it  courses  with 
the  storm-wind;  its  sails  are  red;  its  ocean  is  blood"? 
What  do  such  words  prove? 

It  is  said  that  the  Social  Democracy  itself  confesses, 
or  at  least  did  once  confess,  its  character  of  violence. 
For  example,  the  Communist  Manifesto  contained 
these  words :  "The  Communists  everywhere  support 
every  revolution  against  the  existing  social  and  po- 
litical order."  "They  are  above  hiding  their  aims  and 
their  views.  They  declare  openly  that  their  ends  can 
be  reached  only  by  the  violent  overthrow  of  the  pres- 
ent order  of  society."  In  the  same  manner  speaks 
Bebel  in  his  work,  Our  Aims:  "Let  no  one  be  shock- 
ed at  this  possible  use  of  violence  or  fume  over  the 
suppression  by  force  of  privileges  previously  author- 
ized by  society.  All  history  teaches  us  that  new  ideas 
generally  come  to  fruition  through  the  forceful  strug- 
gle of  their  champions  with  the  defenders  of  the  es- 
tablished order,  and  that  these  champions  seek  to  strike 
at  the  old  order  a  fatal  blow.  So  we  see  how  force 
has  played  its  telling  part  in  many  epochs  of  the 
world.  Karl  Marx  was  not  speaking  at  random  when 
he  said:  'Violence  is  the  midwife  of  every  society 
pregnant  with  a  new  idea.'  "  Wherever  we  look  in 
the  traditional  literature  of  the  Social  Democracy,  say 
these  critics,  we  find  the  same  idea  recurring.  The 
fact  that  in  recent  years  the  tone  is  growing  more 
pacific,  that  a  Bernstein,  for  example,  disavows  ex- 
plicitly the  violent  methods  of  his  party,  does  not 
prove  anything  to  the  critics.  For  on  the  one  hand, 
they  say,  it  is   impossible  to  tell  how   far  this  new 


112  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

mildness  is  only  a  mask  assumed  by  some  of  the 
Social  Democrats  for  the  accomplishment  of  im- 
mediate ends,  and  on  the  other  hand  there  are  still 
plenty  of  Social  Democrats  who  insist  on  force  for 
the  realization  of  the  new  social  conditions.  The 
Social  Democracy  is  and  remains  at  base  a  revolution- 
ary movement.  Stoecker's  reproach  at  the  inception 
of  the  party  is  still  true  to-day;  therefore  it  is  the 
duty  of  every  Christian  to  combat  the  godless,  revo- 
lutionary Social  Democracy  as  best  he  can.  For 
violence  is  not  of  God.  God  abhors  and  punishes  it 
with  righteous  punishment.  Thus  hold  the  religious 
condemners  of  the  Social  Democracy. 


To  this  Christian  anxiety  we  have  the  following 
reply  to  make:  If  you  open  the  New  Testament  you 
will  find  on  every  page — Revolution.  The  violent 
end  of  the  old  world  is  its  theme.  Everything  that 
Jesus  says  pertains  to  a  new  world.  Even  his  sweet- 
est, softest  words  can  be  comprehended  only  in  the 
light  of  the  new  world  which  is  coming. 

When  he  bids  us  be  free  from  care  as  the  children 
and  the  sparrows,  trusting  for  our  nourishment  to 
our  heavenly  Father's  hand ;  when  he  forbids  us  to 
gather  treasures  on  earth,  he  strikes  the  entire  pre- 
vailing conception  of  life  a  blow  in  the  face,  and  con- 
demns our  system  of  production  more  strongly  than 
the  reddest  Socialist.  And  if  Jesus'  words  are  true, 
if  they  are  not  the  wandering  words  of  a  misty  in- 
tellect, of  an  overstrained  fancy,  of  a  warm  emotional 
devotion;  if  they  are  words  of  soberness  and  reality, 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  113 

then  must  they  not  revolutionize  our  whole  existing 
society?     Will  their  fulfillment  come  without  violence? 

Will  the  servants  of  Mammon  and  the  gatherers  of 
treasures,  all  the  army  of  men  pledged  to  the  rule  of 
Mammon,  let  the  change  come  in  peace?  Did  not 
Jesus  himself  see  the  inevitable  conflict  when  he  said: 
"I  am  come  not  to  bring  peace,  but  the  sword"? 
Where  have  we  any  warrant  in  the  New  Testament  for 
the  idea  of  our  sentimental  Christianity  that  all  this 
renewal  of  earth  is  to  consist  in  the  sweet,  soft  breath 
of  emotional  contemplation?  Where  is  it  written  that 
everything  is  to  proceed  from  the  heart  through  the 
change  of  heart,  and  that  outward  force  is  godless? 

Yes,  godless,  when  measured  by  the  frail  creation 
of  our  cowardly  Christianity,  the  fantastic  idol  that 
we  have  set  in  the  place  of  the  living  God — the  im- 
potent, false  god  whose  providence  never  extends  to  the 
sphere  of  natural  forces,  whose  will  is  only  the  shield 
with  which  we  cover  our  hypocrisy  and  weakness, 
through  whose  authority  we  legitimize  all  baseness, 
from  whom  we  expect  good  only  in  the  future,  while 
the  suspicion  that  the  real  God  lives  and  works  in  the 
present  as  in  the  past  is  set  down  as  a  blasphemy! 

Rut  the  living  God  laughs  at  this  bastard,  fearful 
Christianity.  He  says  to  a  people:  Sink  and  become 
dust — and  the  power  of  destruction  rises  over  that 
people,  death  swings  his  lurid  torch  over  blooming 
fields  and  fruitful  meadows.  Then  unavailing  are 
moaning,  shrieking  and  entreaty.  Like  a  swarm  of 
locusts  the  powers  of  death  ravage  the  land — and  who 
will  withstand  them?  Who  will  say,  This  is  terrible,  it 
is  godless?     What  cares  the  living  God  for  our  mo- 


1 14  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

mentary  suffering?  He  has  fields  and  meadows,  leap- 
ing brooks  and  blue  lakes  enough.  He  has  inexhaust- 
ible treasures,  and  need  not  regret  it  when  the  grass 
withers  and  the  flowers  fade,  when  houses  fall  in  ruins 
and  cities  collapse.  His  purpose  is  to  rouse  men  from 
false  security,  to  deliver  them  from  evil  pleasures  and 
idle  frivolities  and  to  lead  them  to  their  everlasting 
destiny. 

The  living  God  needs  violence.  In  the  vicissitudes 
of  change  and  loss  we  are  made  wise.  The  pavilions 
of  our  momentary  delights  we  build  and  rebuild,  and 
God  shatters  them  above  our  heads ! 

Is  He  to  be  forever  a  spectator,  watching  us  ruin 
ourselves  in  our  frivolity,  listening  to  the  talk  of  our 
science,  the  chirping  of  our  wisdom?  If  He  lives  and 
works,  must  He  not  tear  from  our  hands  every  useless 
plaything,  that  He  may  fill  them  with  the  eternal 
riches  ? 

Yes,  there  is  no  greater  danger  for  our  littleness 
than  the  living  God,  nothing  more  destructive  to  our 
vanity  than  that  He  is. 

The  greatest  of  all  revolutionists  is  the  living 
God.  He  is  the  most  ruthless  of  destroyers!  For 
our  age  too  He  is  preparing  surprises  which  will  ring 
in  the  ears  of  the  people.  Like  chaff  will  He  sweep 
away  the  cowardly  embarrassments  and  misgivings 
of  our  Christianity  and  in  the  storm  wind  of  His 
judgment  will  He  rouse  us  to  the  real  greatness  which 
we  in  our  vanity  would  fritter  away,  but  which  He  in 
spite  of  all  will  keep  safe  for  the  children  of  men. 

4- 

At  present  we  are  petty  and  common.     We  mix 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  115 

the  service  of  God  and  the  service  of  Mammon.  We 
say  "God !"  but  the  breath  of  Mammon  sweeps  our 
word  away.  The  dust  impresses  us ;  nothingness  com- 
pels our  worship.  We  have  no  longer  the  power  to 
imagine  a  great  endless  universe,  and  ourselves  as  the 
members  of  an  order  that  is  more  permanent  than  the 
objective  facts  that  our  minds  can  grasp.  To  be  sure 
we  acknowledge  mechanically  that  the  earth  is  but  a 
grain  of  dust.  Yet  we  cling  to  that  grain  of  dust  and 
have  no  power  to  grasp  the  great  eternity  which  palpi- 
tates in  every  breath  we  draw. 

We  are  small.  Everything  inspires  us  with  fear, 
keeps  us  down,  plunges  us  in  anxious  cares.  We  are 
small  in  our  fears,  small  in  our  hopes.  Great  is  the 
little  child  that  trusts  its  father,  great  the  birds  that 
have  the  whole  earth  for  their  granary — but  we  are 
little.  We  build  chests  and  boxes,  castles,  vaults  to 
hide  our  treasures.  We  fortify  them  with  walls  and 
cannon.  We  play  hide-and-seek  in  the  great  open 
world  of  God ;  alas,  there  is  for  us  no  great  world. 

Our  social  life  is  petty;  our  standpoints,  theories, 
systems,  our  science  and  art,  our  heaven  and  hell,  our 
Christianity— everything — everything  little  and  earth- 
stained. 

Only  one  thing  is  great ;  Mammon ;  Mammon  ever 
rearing  his  strong  head  of  gold  like  a  giant  phantom 
over  our  civilization. 

Then  the  storm  wind  of  God  blows  through  the 
dry  leaves  of  our  civilization — the  voice  of  the  Social 
Democracy ! 

God  cares  not  where  he  finds  his  servants.  The 
invited  refused  his  call  to  do  his  work,  therefore  he 


Il6  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

reached  forth  for  the  "atheists" — and  they  have  re- 
sponded. He  must  go  on  with  the  work.  Righteous- 
ness, love,  fraternity  must  dominate.  And  when 
righteousness  arises,  the  dust  of  vanity  that  has  lain 
upon  it  must  be  shaken  off.  The  strongest  mountain 
must  tremble  and  break  asunder  when  Vulcan  stirs 
himself.  And  the  Vulcan  of  eternity  is  working  now! 
Ominous  rumblings  can  be  heard.  Seething  masses 
are  in  motion.  The  fire  of  eternity  is  bursting  forth, 
and  the  mountain  of  Mammon  will  be  rent  asunder. 

The  world  says  in  its  fear:  Behold  the  covetous- 
ness  of  the  masses,  the  execrable  discontent  of  the  pro- 
letariat, behold  revolution  and  ruin !  But  through 
such  cries  of  fear  is  heard  the  voice  of  the  living  God : 
"I  rouse  Myself  to  deliver  My  imprisoned  people.  I 
will  lead  them  to  the  brooks  of  water  where  they  may 
quench  their  thirst ;  I  will  wipe  away  the  dust-stains 
from  their  brow,  and  take  from  their  limbs  the  fetters 
of  Mammon.  I  will  wait  no  longer.  My  justice  is 
outraged,  My  patience  exhausted.  I  will  smite  them 
that  have  smitten  My  poor.  I  will  show  My  power 
to  them  that  have  used  power  against  My  little  ones. 
For  I  am  the  Lord !"  That  is  revolution,  but  in  the 
revolution  is  God. 

5- 

It  is  your  fault  that  it  is  so.  You  will  have  revolu- 
tion because  you  will  not  forsake  Mammon.  You 
ridicule  the  Eternal  Love  proclaimed  to  you.  You  de- 
clare that  as  things  are  now  so  they  have  always  been 
and  so  they  will  ever  be.  You  provoke  the  revolution, 
because  you  exhaust  the  patience  of  the  Most  High 
with  your  oppressions. 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  WJ 

Oppressions !  My  pen  fails  me  when  I  try  to  write 
them  down.  Wherever  my  eye  turns,  there  is  the 
pressure  of  the  strong  upon  the  weak — a  system  of 
ceaseless  exploitation  from  top  to  bottom.  Force  and 
cunning  in  control  everywhere.  The  earth  has  all  that 
all  men  need — forests  for  weak  lungs,  river-banks  for 
wearied  limbs,  sun,  air,  warmth  for  the  millions  who 
crave  to  live.  But  forest,  water,  air  and  light  do  the 
millions  little  good.  They  cannot  enjoy  these  gifts  of 
God.  They  are  chained  to  the  inexorable  power  of  the 
machine,  to  the  cruel  power  of  the  owner.  There  is 
no  escape,  no  hope  for  betterment,  no  relief. 

Wherever  Mammon  has  claimed  a  human  heart, 
there  is  hell  on  earth.  Nothing  is  conceded  but  what 
must  be  conceded.  The  simplest  and  most  obvious 
claims  of  humanity  are  ruthlessly  trodden  under  foot. 
Children  and  frail  women  are  sacrificed  to  the  golden 
Moloch.  Nothing  is  sacred,  the  bonds  of  shame  are 
loosed,  and  man  sinks  to  a  level  with  the  beast. 

A  shudder  of  horror  ran  through  the  civilized  world 
when  Marx,  the  great  champion  of  the  poor,  set  the 
wretchedness  of  the  English  factory  population  before 
the  eyes  of  a  blase  world.  Read  the  descriptions  of 
Engels  or  any  other  of  the  writers  on  social  condi- 
tions, of  any  party,  realize  the  desperation  of  so  many 
poorest  of  the  poor,  the  bondage  and  slavery  of  all  the 
hundreds  of  thousands  that  are  languishing  in  Mam- 
mon's bonds,  the  brutal  and  unscrupulous  indifference 
with  which  in  the  flower  of  their  life  men  arc  thrown 
into  the  abyss  through  the  cruel  folly  of  our  system 
of  production,  the  deeds  of  violence  daily  perpetrated 
on  our  poor — and  then  ask  yourself  what  weight  has 


Il8  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

the  complaint  against  the  Social  Democracy  that  it  is 
revolutionary ! 

Is  there  a  more  revolting-  piece  of  hypocrisy  in  the 
world  than  this  cry  ?  And  if  the  Social  Democracy 
were  a  hundred  times  as  violent  as  you  in  your  sin- 
bred  terror  imagine  it,  even  then  it  would  be  a  bless- 
ing in  comparison  with  the  daily  deeds  of  violence 
which  you  are  practicing  against  your  poorer  brethren. 

Society  has  no  right  to  complain  of  revolution. 
Such  a  censure  in  its  mouth  is  unsupportable  hypocrisy. 
Men  extort  from  the  poor,  and  then  cry  "revolution," 
when  the  poor  try  to  cast  off  the  yoke  of  oppression. 

Is  it  God's  will  that  the  lowly  should  bow  them- 
selves to  the  dust?  Why  may  not  by  chance  the  op- 
posite be  His  will !  When  it  is  a  question  of  protect- 
ing riches,  privileges,  responsibilities,  rank,  preroga- 
tives of  every  kind,  then  men  talk  of  God  as  the  Power 
who  has  arranged  and  established  all  that;  but  if  it  is 
a  question  of  the  rights  of  the  downtrodden,  then  they 
talk  of  hell,  of  satanic  envy  and  covetousness.  They 
believe  in  God — to  protect  Mammon,  and  in  Satan — 
to  discipline  the  masses.  The  injustice  of  the  rich  is 
justice ;  the  right  of  the  poor  is  wrong. 

The  poor  dare  not  stir.  They  have  their  comfort 
for  privation — in  heaven.  If  they  raise  their  heads  or 
rattle  their  chains,  then  society  trains  cannon  on  them 
and  prays  in  its  churches  against  the  spirit  of  revolt 
and  hell.     With  what  right,  tell  me  if  you  can? 

Why  should  not  the  poor  man  live?  Why  not  as 
well  as  you  lead  a  life  free  from  care?  Why  must  he 
eke  out  his  days  in  misery  and  mortification  ?  Because 
you  would  not  then  be  able  to  receive  so  large  divi- 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  I  JO, 

dends  or  build  houses  so  fine ;  or  else  because  his  cry 
strikes  so  unpleasantly  on  your  ears. 

But  did  not  the  same  God  to  whom  you  pray  week- 
ly that  he  may  preserve  your  property  also  create  the 
poor  man?  And  do  you  dare  speak  of  the  will  of 
God  when  the  poor  man  sinks  under  your  heavy  hand  ? 

If  suffering  is  God's  will,  if  you  have  no  other 
comfort  for  the  poor  man's  misery  but  that  it  is  good 
for  him  to  cultivate  submission  and  patience,  why  then 
do  you  cry  out  against  the  dangers  that  threaten  you, 
why  talk  of  revolution  and  violence  when  your 
thrones  totter?  Does  not  your  Bible  say:  "With 
what  judgment  ye  judge  ye  shall  be  judged  and  with 
what  measure  ye  mete  it  shall  be  meted  to  you"?  If 
it  is  right  for  you  to  oppress  the  poor,  tell  me  why  it 
is  not  right  for  the  poor  to  defend  themselves  against 
you? 

6. 

Calmly  you  regard  the  misery  of  the  masses,  you 
do  not  shudder  at  the  despairing  cry  of  the  unfortu- 
nate. Your  brow  is  hard  as  steel,  your  heart  is  as 
rock.  You  are  not  sentimental  dreamers ;  with  cool, 
sober  gaze  you  look  out  upon  the  foaming  waters, 
called  life.  Man  must  learn  to  endure ;  without 
trouble  and  anxiety  he  becomes  good  for  nothing — 
that  is  your  maxim.  And  you  are  right.  We  are 
made  to  strive,  and  by  strife  to  overcome.  We  should 
not  fear  evil  nor  retreat  before  danger.  We  should 
present  a  bold  front  to  calamity,  meet  death  intrepidly, 
bear  without  a  tremor  all  the  blows  that  life  can  give. 
But  why  does  this  truth  change  bitterly  into  falsehood 
as  soon  as  there  is  peril  to  your  privileges,  your  posi- 


120  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

tion,  your  rank,  your  gold?  Why  do  you  glory  in 
the  storm  of  events  so  long  as  it  rears  its  waves  around 
the  boats  of  the  poor,  but  cry  so  loudly  for  help  as 
soon  as  it  touches  your  own  fortune? 

Is  it  true,  as  venal  flatterers  whisper  in  your  ear, 
that  you  are  men  of  a  different  blood  from  others — 
"super-men"?  Is  it  true  that  God  has  determined  on 
a  diverse  lot  for  men,  decreeing  happiness  for  the  rich 
zind  suffering  for  the  poor?  Is  it  true  that  your  in- 
dustrial advantages  give  you  a  rightful  monopoly  of 
happiness  ? 

I  will  tell  you  the  truth ;  Mammon  has  blinded 
your  hearts,  darkened  your  intellects,  broken  your 
strength  of  soul.  He  has  taken  justice,  truth  and 
love  from  your  hearts  and  planted  there  his  own  mor- 
als. For  there  is  a  special  mammon-truth,  a  mammon- 
piety. 

Mammon  has  his  Ten  Commandments  as  well  as 
God,  and  them  have  you  taken  to  heart :  Ye  shall  have 
no  other  gods,  no  living  God,  but  rne.  Ye  shall  make 
no  useless  conceptions  and  ideals  for  yourselves.  Ye 
shall  not  honor  what  is  in  heaven  or  on  earth.  For, 
I,  Mammon,  am  a  strong  god,  visiting  vengeance  on 
children's  children  of  those  who  neglect  me,  and  re- 
warding my  worshippers  with  prosperity  and  riches. 
Ye  shall  not  speak  slightingly  of  Mammon,  for  he 
that  so  doeth  shall  not  go  unpunished.  Six  days  shalt 
thou  do  Mammon's  business,  and  all  the  seventh  think 
of  him.  Thou  shalt  honor  Mammon  that  thou  mayst 
live  long  and  prosper,  and  that  the  securities  which  he 
puts  into  thy  hand  may  rise  in  value.  Ye  shall  not 
break  your  troth  with  Mammon.     Ye  shall  steal  as 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  121 

much  as  ye  safely  can.  Ye  shall  bring  false  witness 
and  institute  false  practices  against  your  neighbor, 
for  such  conduct  is  well  pleasing  to  Mammon.  Ye 
shall  covet  no  other  good  but  gold. 

Know  you  not  these  commandments?  Do  you  not 
see  how  different  a  world  they  make,  how  different 
life  is  in  the  light  of  their  morals?  We  understand 
now  why  the  rich  consider  themselves  of  so  much 
greater  value  than  the  poor.  They  measure  man  by 
money.  We  comprehend  now  that  God's  grace  rests 
upon  the  rich  and  his  anger  upon  the  poor.  For  "God" 
is  Mammon  and  he  knows  no  greater  disgrace  than 
poverty.  We  understand  now  how  right  is  wrong  and 
wrong  is  right,  for  Mammon's  morals  are  different 
from  the  living  God's. 

It  is  even  as  Jesus  said :  "Ye  cannot  serve  God 
and  Mammon ;"  and  you  who  serve  Mammon  are  in- 
capable of  understanding  the  social  question,  because 
its  very  essence  is  the  irreconcilable  enmity  between 
God  and  Mammon. 

7- 

In  truth  the  Revolution-idea  is  born  of  Mammon ; 
it  is  through  Mammon  that  revolution  has  become  a 
historic  necessity.  So  long  as  money  rules,  there  will 
be  revolution.  All  that  is  said  against  revolutions 
comes  from  the  fear  that  Mammon's  rule  will  suffer. 

The  spirit  of  Mammon  cares  nothing  for  great 
thoughts  stirring  the  minds  of  men ;  it  cares  for  itself 
alone;  it  stands  or  falls  with  egoism.  The  world  of 
egoistic  production  is  its  world.  Mammon  raises  its 
throne  wherever  the  most  money  is  to  be  heaped  to- 
gether. 


122  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

Since  immense  masses  of  money  could  not  be  heap- 
ed up  if  men's  interests  were  common,  Mammon 
strives  to  keep  men  apart,  sever  the  bands  of  family, 
of  tribe,  of  humankind.  The  peoples  given  over  to 
the  dominion  of  Mammon  fall  into  congeries  of  atoms, 
bound  by  no  inner  union,  only  by  the  outer  tie  of 
cash.  Ancient  Rome  perished  under  Mammon;  the 
Papal  Church  was  disrupted  by  Mammon;  and  it  is 
Mammon  who  is  leading  the  modern  states  to  dissolu- 
tion. 

But  in  the  midst  of  this  domination  of  Mammon 
the  living  God  is  working.  Mammon  has  its  aims. 
God  has  His.  Mammon  will  hear  nothing  of  righteous- 
ness. God  will  hear  of  nothing  else.  Truth  and  love 
are  foolishness  in  the  judgment  of  Mammon,  in  God's 
judgment  they  are  the  power  of  life.  On  both  sides 
an  inalterable  law;  here  the  law  of  self,  there  the  law 
of  love.  And  when  these  laws  meet  on  the  same  field, 
when  they  claim  the  same  scene,  who  shall  say  that 
revolution  must  not  come?  Revolution  is  necessary, 
because  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  necessary.  Destruc- 
tion must  come,  because  the  eternal  must  be  estab- 
lished. The  world  does  not  follow  quietly  its  own 
laws  of  development;  in  the  midst  of  its  life  rules  the 
living  God ! 

Simply  imagine  men  free  from  the  passionate  fear 
for  their  worldly  possessions,  hence  free  to  be  pos- 
sessed by  a  higher  conception  of  life,  free  therefore  to 
deal  with  their  property  according  to  that  higher  con- 
ception— would  men  so  made  free  not  at  once  put  an 
end  to  crises  and  to  poverty?  But  as  long  as  men 
eagerly  cling  to  earthly  possessions,  unconscious  of  a 


GOB  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  I2J 

higher  world,  as  long  as  they  see  their  sole  help  and 
power  in  money,  gold  their  sole  reality,  so  long  will 
it  be  needful  that  the  living  God  set  His  reality  against 
Mammon's  appearance  of  reality,  that  so  God  may  tear 
men  from  their  treasure-boxes,  from  the  dark  vaults 
where  their  stores  lie,  up  into  the  light  of  His  truth. 
Not  otherwise  can  men  be  set  free  from  the  delusions 
of  Mammon ;  and  thus  is  God  to-day  working  through 
the  Social  Democracy.  Society  cries  "revolution" ; 
but  this  word  is  but  the  screen  for  society's  evil  con- 
science. 

8. 

But  you  say:  "We,  too,  acknowledge  the  right  of 
revolution ;  we,  too,  believe  that  the  eternal  verities 
cannot  make  their  way  by  any  other  means.  We  have 
the  example  of  our  Lord  himself  in  his  assault  upon 
the  priests  and  the  Pharisees ;  we  have  the  example  of 
the  Reformers  who  defied  the  whole  world  unterrified. 
But  the  power  that  Jesus  and  the  Reformers  used  was 
the  power  of  inward  conviction,  not  that  of  outward 
and  brutal  violence.  'He  who  draws  the  sword  shall 
perish  by  the  sword,'  says  Jesus.  'The  word  alone 
must  accomplish  it,'  was  the  motto  of  Luther.  Not 
at  all  such  is  the  program  of  the  Social  Democracy, 
which  (at  least  in  its  beginning)  openly  made  violence 
and  bloodshed  its  basis  and  declared  that  its  demands 
could  never  be  realized  without  resort  to  arms.  And 
its  tactics  of  constraining  society  to  yield,  by  means 
of  strikes  more  and  more  extensive,  are  little  calculated 
to  induce  confidence  in  its  peaceful  intentions." 

In  answer  to  this  reproach  we  will  not  insist  on 
the  clear  assertion  of  the  modern  Social  Democracy 


124  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

that  it  abhors  physical  force  and  would  reach  its  ends 
purely  by  ways  of  peace ;  we  will  not  dwell  on  the  fact 
that  the  demonstrations  and  manifestoes  of  the  Social 
Democrats  have  often  been  distinguished  for  their  ex- 
press characteristics  of  calmness  and  good  sense.  We 
will  grant,  for  the  moment,  that  the  Social  Democracy 
is  convinced  that  it  can  arrive  at  its  ideals  only  through 
the  intervention  of  outward  force.  What  does  that 
prove  ? 

The  Social  Democrats  say:  We  can  expect  victory 
only  through  a  revolution  by  force.  Does  this  mean 
that  they  are  violent  men,  that  they  pretend  to  want  a 
social  change  but  really  want  blood?  No  man,  not 
even  their  bitterest  enemy,  is  fool  enough  to  believe 
such  a  charge.  Everyone  concedes,  whether  grudg- 
ingly or  gladly,  that  the  Social  Democrats  cultivate  a 
noble  idealism.  "If  the  Social  Democracy  rage  against 
the  powerfully  protected  worship  of  Mammon,  there 
is  in  their  rage  a  lofty  idealism."  (Schall:  The 
Social  Democracy,  Its  Truth  and  Its  Errors,  p.  175.) 
"A  spirit  of  noble  endeavor,  an  idealism  which  often 
shames  the  well-to-do  classes,  a  devotion  approaching 
martyrdom  characterizes  many  an  agitator  of  the  So- 
cial Democracy."  (Schaeffle:  The  Futility  of  the  Social 
Democracy,  p.  38.)  Even  Stoecker  says,  "A  move- 
ment which  takes  such  deep  hold,  which  in  so  short 
a  time  wins  great  masses  of  men  and  women,  a  move- 
ment so  strong  and  so  lasting  that  it  has  been  neces- 
sary to  counteract  it  by  the  passage  of  laws  which 
contradict  the  modern  spirit  of  liberty — such  a  move- 
ment is  not  a  product  of  lazy  minds  nor  is  it  a  turn  of 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  125 

chance,  or  a  child  of  folly."     {Christian  Social  Re- 
form, 2d  edition,  p.  216.) 

But  if  its  idealism  is  the  prominent  trait  of  the 
Social  Democracy,  then  its  doctrine  of  the  violent  up- 
heaval of  society  cannot  be  looked  on  as  a  thing  be- 
lieved because  desired.  The  Social  Democrats  have 
determined  that  the  rule  of  Mammon  shall  fall.  But 
Mammon  has  his  kingdom  in  the  things  in  sight,  in  the 
circumstances  and  the  whole  life-activities  of  men.  If 
Mammon  is  to  fall,  all  these  outward  circumstances 
must  be  changed.  It  is  not  a  question  here  of  theo- 
ries, systems,  thoughts  alone,  (as  it  was  largely,  for 
example,  in  the  Reformation),  but  of  the  establish- 
ment, continuance  or  disappearance  of  what  men  of 
all  classes  or  ranks  regard  as  their  primary  interests. 
The  chief  question  of  life — the  stomach  question — 
must  at  last  be  solved,  freed  from  the  awful  confus- 
ion into  which  it  has  been  brought  by  the  dominion  of 
Mammon,  and  settled  so  that  men  may  never  have  to 
recur  to  it. 

The  material  foundation  of  our  life  must  be  defi- 
nitely laid  and  assured.  This  is  a  postulate  of  the 
most  decisive  importance.  It  is  clear  that  society  is 
struck  by  this  demand  as  by  no  other  and  that  the 
servants  of  Mammon  will  defend  themselves  to  the 
last  against  granting  this  demand.  Here  we  have 
Mammon  touched  at  the  point  of  deepest  interest, 
struck  at  its  roots. 

9- 
So  then  it  seems  that  the  social  question  cannot 
be  solved  except  by  violence.     But  whose  fault  is  that  ? 
Consider  the  way  in  which  great  and  small,  learned 


126  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

and  ignorant,  conservative  and  liberal,  all  society,  with 
the  church  at  the  head,  have  treated  the  Social  Demo- 
crats for  the  past  decades.  Remember  the  scorn  and 
despite  which  has  been  their  lot,  the  ridicule  with  which 
they  have  always  been  greeted,  the  suspicions  scattered 
broadcast  to  their  harm.  Think  of  the  readiness  with 
which  the  police  have  been  on  hand  to  quell  the  slight- 
est sign  of  Social  Democratic  "disturbance,"  of  the  an- 
noyances and  persecutions  to  which  the  leaders  have 
been  subjected,  of  the  scorn  which  society  has  poured 
upon  their  idealism.  Would  not  the  Social  Democrats 
have  to  be  made  of  different  stuff,  from  ourselves, 
would  they  not  have  to  be  angels  and  seraphim  rather 
than  men,  to  meet  this  base  treatment  of  society  with 
the  sweet  smile  of  unassailable,  joyous  optimism? 

They  aim  at  something  grand  and  eternal — society 
derides  them.  They  have  high  and  pure  purposes — 
society  suspicions  them.  They  make  the  greatest  sacri- 
fices for  their  idealism — society  accuses  them  of  ma- 
terialism and  of  pleasure-seeking.  They  rise  against 
the  arch-enemy  of  humanity — society  screams,  "Revo- 
lution, subversion !" 

We  are  agreed  that  it  is  absolutely  wrong  for  men 
to  make  the  forcible  overthrow  of  all  existing  condi- 
tions the  principle  of  their  faith,  but  we  say  that 
neither  Church  nor  society  has  the  right  to  accuse  the 
Social  Democrats  of  harboring,  this  principle.  And 
we  further  assert  that  the  Social  Democracy  has  re- 
peatedly shown  itself  and  is  more  and  more  clearly 
showing  itself  to  be  a  party  (we  say  unqualifiedly,  the 
greatest  party)  of  peace.  There  is  to-day  no  better 
pledge  of  domestic  peace  than  the  existence  of  the 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  1TJ 

Social  Democratic  party.  The  wider  this  party 
spreads,  the  quieter  our  life  will  be.  The  shocking 
state  of  the  factory  worker  has  yielded,  thanks  to  the 
party's  activity,  to  a  somewhat  more  humane  order. 
Mobs  of  desperate,  hungry  workers  no  longer  as- 
semble to  threaten  their  masters;  all  this  has  given 
way  to  a  settled  system  of  tactics,  conscious  of  aim. 

It  is  foolish  to  blame  strikers.  We  may  see  in 
strikes  a  dangerous  and  deplorable  procedure,  but  we 
must  not  forget  that  this  procedure  is  necessary,  on 
the  one  hand  in  order  to  secure  a  discipline  of  the 
masses  which  will  save  them  from  riotous  uprisings, 
and  on  the  other  hand,  to  keep  the  minds  of  the  work- 
ers alive  to  the  great  conflict  of  classes. 

This  conflict  of  classes  is  provoked  not  by  the 
workers  but  by  Mammon.  He  who  opposes  strikes 
as  unjust  or  sinful  either  does  not  know  that  this 
class-struggle  existed,  and  in  a  much  rougher,  more 
dangerous  form  than  now,  long  before  strikes  were 
organized,  or  else  he  is  content  to  let  the  antagonism 
of  the  classes  with  all  its  terrible  potentialities  go 
quietly  on  while  he  condemns  all  show  of  strife.  The 
former  assumption  shows  hardly  pardonable  ignor- 
ance, the  latter  shows  brutality.  The  conflict  of  the 
classes  exists.  It  began  as  soon  a  there  were  op- 
pressors and  oppressed.  That  the  Social  Democracy 
has  brought  this  conflict  to  clear  light  and  systematized 
its  meanings  is  a  great  service,  a  service  which  de- 
serves least  of  all  to  be  branded  by  the  name  of  revo- 
lutionary tactics.  For  the  workers  to  abandon  the 
class-struggle  would  mean  nothing  else  than  that  they 
should  fall  back  under  the  old  tyranny  of  Mammon. 


128  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

For  Mammon  never  yields  willingly.  He  gives  in — 
when  he  must. 

It  is  an  astonishing  thing  that  any  should  presume 
to  condemn  strikes  in  the  name  of  Christianity.  Why, 
it  is  Christianity  itself  that  has  given  us  the  struggle 
between  two  great  principles,  made  us  able  to  follow 
opposite  principles  to  the  very  end  and  decide  bravely 
for  one  or  the  other.  This  is  what  we  call  character, 
love  of  truth. 

But,  when  it  is  a  question  of  the  Social  Democracy, 
how  differently  people  judge.  Here  they  refuse  to 
see  the  opposition  of  principles.  How  foolish !  In 
questions  of  religious  theory,  where  the  principles 
concern  only  the  realm  of  ideas,  where  they  can  be 
reconciled  by  reciprocal  good  will,  where  they  do  not 
touch  the  dearest  interests  of  men,  their  irreducible 
opposition  is  held  to  with  a  fixed  non  possumus — we 
cannot  yield.  But  where  the  opposing  principles  mean 
real  disaster,  where  they  are  of  the  most  vital  import- 
ance, where  the  fight  between  giants,  God  and  Mam- 
mon, is  to  be  fought — in  the  economic  field — there  men 
deny  the  conflict, refuse  to  hear  of  irreconcilable  princi- 
ples, and  think  they  can  smooth  over  the  enmity  with 
well-meaning  words  and  Christian  texts.  How  short- 
sighted, how  unjust  to  the  great  matter  in  hand ! 

10. 

We  are  obliged  to  blame  the  Christian  Social  Re- 
formers for  having,  by  their  attitude  toward  strikes, 
hurt  the  position  of  the  worker  and  so  helped  the  re- 
action. They  cannot  see  the  opposition  of  principles 
clearly.     They  regard  the  present  system  of  produc- 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  120, 

tion  as  on  the  whole  justifiable,  and  think  it  is  only  the 
hearts  of  men  that  are  wrong.  They  hide  the  real 
evil  behind  Christian  commonplaces.  So  they  think 
they  can  break  up  the  question,  and  deal  with  each 
case  in  detail.  They  do  not  see  the  strike  as  a  princi- 
ple, but  only  many  strikes,  each  different  from  the 
other.  And  the  way  in  which  they  deal  with  them  is 
ominous. 

They  say:  "We  have  to  find  out  simply  whether 
the  strike  in  question  is  a  just  one  or  not.  In  case  it 
is  not,  we  must  take  sides  against  the  strikers,  for  we 
stand  for  justice  above  all  else."  That  is  a  method  of 
procedure  utterly  false.  It  is  not  only  futile  and  in- 
effective ;  it  is  positively  unjust.  For  it  ignores  the 
iniquitous  social  status  out  of  which  strikes  develop, 
to  fix  attention  on  the  momentary  issue  between  the 
employed  and  the  employer.  To  be  sure,  in  many  in- 
stances workmen  plunge  into  a  strike  without  suffi- 
cient cause ;  but  such  instances  are  more  than  balanced 
by  the  "black  lists"  and  other  injurious  acts  of  the 
magnates.  Anyone  who  attempts  the  complete 
casuistry  of  this  business  is  undertaking  the  task  of 
Sisyphus.  The  occasional  attitude  of.  employed  to- 
ward employer  is  of  little  consequence,  the  basal  atti- 
tude is  everything. 

What  would  be  thought,  for  example,  in  theological 
circles,  of  attempting  to  get  at  the  difference  between 
the  Catholic  and  the  Protestant  Church  by  appeal  to 
case  after  case  of  doctrine  and  of  morals?  This  was 
attempted  soon  after  the  break  between  the  churches, 
but  in  vain.  It  was  soon  discovered  that  the  differ- 
ence was  a  basal  one,  not  to  be  smoothed  over  by  arbi- 


130  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

tration  on  special  cases.  Why  do  not  our  social  think- 
ers profit  by  this  example?  Why  do  some  even  say 
that  the  social  question  is  not  one  of  clashing  princi- 
ples, and  that  to  take  it  as  such  is  to  confuse  the  is- 
sue wholly? 

They  say:  "The  social  question  cannot  be  con- 
densed into  a  clear  and  unequivocal  formula.  There 
are  too  many  individual  interests  involved:  here  the 
landlord,  there  the  tenant ;  here  the  employer,  there  the 
worker.  The  structure  of  the  social  body  is  so  com- 
plex that,  unless  we  wish  to  fall  into  that  barren 
doctrinaire  speculation  which  characterizes  the  Social 
Democrats,  we  must  take  each  case  on  its  own  merits, 
and  attempt  to  solve  it  according  to  its  peculiar  con- 
ditions." 

Such  is  in  substance  the  thesis  of  the  Christian 
Reformers.  We  have  already  seen  that  their  Chris- 
tianity is  annexed  to  their  social  postulates,  but 
neither  penetrates  them  nor  fecundates  them  with  its 
spirit.  They  do  not  understand  Christianity.  If  they 
did,  they  would  see  that  it  claims  to  be  a  basal  mat- 
ter and  not  merely  a  concomitant  phenomenon.  The 
living  spirit  of  Christianity  will  not  allow  itself  to 
serve  as  a  mere  ameliorating  principle.  Itf  must 
create  anew.  It  does  not  brood  like  a  pitying  angel 
over  society,  reaching  down  at  times  from  above 
to  appease  and  help  and  comfort — but  within  society 
it  works  out  its  great  purposes.  It  is  not  a  pious 
theory,  any  more  than  it  is  a  scientific  theory.  It  is 
closer  to  men  than  they  think,  in  their  hearts  and 
thoughts.  It  is  present  before  men  speak  of  it;  it 
works,  completes  its  work,  while  they  are  still  cudgel- 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  I3I 

ling  their  brains  for  methods;  it  is  not  only  a  mat- 
ter of  the  heart;  it  is  spirit,  truth  and  life,  the  victory 
of  love  over  self,  the  power  of  the  living  God,  who 
brings  His  purpose  to  pass  with  irresistible  power. 

II. 

This  spirit  of  Christianity  is  the  only  real  power 
in  world-history.  It  is  the  complete  antithesis  to  the 
world.  God  and  Mammon  are  absolute  enemies  on 
the  ground  of  Christianity.  Here  life,  there  death; 
here  love,  there  hate;  here  heaven,  there  hell.  Chris- 
tianity brings  an  eternal,  indomitable  must  into  the 
kingdom  of  Mammon.  It  says:  Life,  love,  light 
must  be! 

"But  for  just  that  reason,"  say  the  conforming 
Christians,  "Christianity  cannot  be  the  governing 
principle  of  the  social  question.  Religion  is  divine,  the 
social  question  is  mundane.  Love  cannot  be  raised 
to  a  political  maxim  and  written  on  the  banners  of 
a  party.  Love  is  not  a  thing  which  can  be  enforced. :. 
And  the  Social  Democrats  are  the  last  persons  in  the 
world  to  pretend  to  fight  for  eternal  love." 

So  they  speak  and  know  not  what  they  say.  They 
separate  the  divine  from  the  human,  the  eternal  from 
the  earthly.  With  open  eyes  they  refuse  to  see  that 
God  in  Jesus  Christ  has  united  himself  with  men,  and 
made  divine  love  the  governing  principle  of  all  earthly 
life. 

This  love  seeks  expression  in  the  Social  Democratic 
party — let  the  Social  Democrats  ridicule  the  idea  as 
they  will.  They  ridicule  the  idea  because  they  have 
never  known  of  any  other  kind  of  divine  love  than 


132  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

that  which  appears  in  the  Church's  dogmatics ;  because 
the  divine  has  always  seemed  to  them  mysticism 
and  dreams.  But  they,  themselves,  are  mystics  and 
dreamers  in  the  judgment  of  society.  They  speak  (as 
did  the  Christians  of  old)  of  a  better  future,  of  a  new 
life,  of  universal  brotherhood,  and  such  like  "foolish- 
ness." To  the  great  thoughts  which  master  and  pos- 
sess them  they  cannot  give  any  suitable  expression. 
They  have  something  too  great  for  themselves  to 
handle.  It  bursts  their  hearts.  It  makes  them  irre- 
sistible.    It  presses  them  forward.     They  must! 

Consequently  they  are  accused  of  being  revolution- 
ary innovators,  and  themselves,  seeking  words  to 
express  their  great  inspiration,  come  upon  phrases 
which  imply  destruction  of  existing  conditions.  They 
feel  convinced  that  society  must  be  other  than  it  is, 
the  old  order  must  go,  and  a  new  must  come.  But 
they  abhor  violence,  they  wish  to  persuade  by  pen 
and  tongue.  Then  the  impelling  power  of  their  faith 
*  becomes  too  strong  for  them  to  control.  In  terms  of 
the  current  thought  of  society  they  are  nurturing 
folly.  Measured  by  the  accepted  standard  of  the  pres- 
ent, they  are  aiming  at  madness.  It  is  all  a  ferment 
and  confusion  which  the  conservative  citizen  shudders 
at.  But  in  very  truth  it  is  the  dawning  of  a  new  day. 
It  is  true  that  "nobody  can  make  love  a  governing  prin- 
ciple, or  enforce  it  on  men,"  that  nobody  can  make 
revolutions  for  love — nobody  but  God. 

God  alone  commits  no  sacrilege  when  He  makes 
weak  and  sinful  men  the  apostles  of  His  Kingdom. 
The  Social  Democrats  are  revolutionary  because  God 
is  revolutionary ;  they  must  go  forward,  because  His 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  1 33 

Kingdom  must  go  forward ;  they  are    men    of    the 
overturning  because  God  is  the  great  overturner. 

12. 

"But  the  Social  Democrats  are  immoderate  in  their 
language.  They  insult  their  opponents  and  rouse 
the  people  by  a  goad  of  bitter  accusation.  They  have 
not  found  the  right  word." 

Where  is  the  word  for  their  great  desire ;  the  lib- 
erating, kindling  word?  Why,  O  Church,  dost  thou 
not  rise  to  give  the  Social  Democracy  its  baptism  of 
idealism?  For  to  thee  the  Lord  has  given  this  word, 
the  final  decisive  word  for  the  poor  against  their 
oppressors,  the  word  of  deliverance  for  a  groaning 
creation,  the  word  of  the  living  God,  the  word  which 
alone  has  power  to  calm  clamorous  voices  and  to 
direct  the  raging  passions  of  men  toward  the  light  of 
truth,  the  great  complete  word  of  God.  This  word, 
thou  hast  it,  O  Church !  The  Social  Democrats  do 
not  have  it.  They  strive  and  struggle,  they  rage  and 
rave — the  storm-wind  is  driving  them.  Give  them 
the  word !  In  the  name  of  the  living  God,  join  their 
ranks,  preach  to  them  of  eternal  love ;  spare  not,  fear 
not,  advance  to  meet  Mammon  in  deadly  strife.  Then 
behold  !  the  threatening  waves  of  the  Social  Democracy 
which  are  dashing  against  the  bulwarks  of  civiliza- 
tion will  subside  into  the  peaceful  and  fruitful  streams 
that  water  the  face  of  the  earth.  Say  no  longer,  O 
Church,  "This  is  of  Hell  and  Destruction!"  Say 
rather,  "God  wills  it !"  Then  wilt  thou  ward  off  what 
gives   us   all   dread — the   revolution ! 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  I35 


CHAPTER  V. 

"THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  DOES   NOT   RECOGNIZE  SIN." 

Now    comes    another    and    often-heard    objection 

against  the  Social  Democracy.    If  any  one  denies  sin, 

the  truth  is  not  in  him.    How  then  can  the  Church  be 

the  sponsor  of  a  movement  which  does  not  recognize 

sin? 

1. 

The  Social  Democrats  declare  that  what  the  Church 
teaches  on  the  subject  of  sin  is  a  mere  dogma. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  sin.  All  evil  comes  out  of 
our  bad  economic  conditions.  Better  the  conditions 
and  you  will  remove  wickedness.  "From  the  mo- 
ment," says  Engels,  "when  the  private  possession  of 
movable  things  became  a  custom  the  moral  command- 
ment, Thou  shalt  not  steal !  came  into  force.  Was 
such  a  commandment  then  an  eternal  moral  law  ?  By 
no  means.  In  a  society  where  the  temptations  to  steal- 
ing were  removed,  where  only  the  idiot  would 
think  of  stealing,  the  moral  teacher  who  should  go 
about  majestically  proclaiming,  Thou  shalt  not  steal ! 
would  be  laughed  at."  (Dichring's  Confusion  of 
Science,  p.  89.)  "It  is  a  frightful  injustice  to  declare 
that  human  nature  was  originally  corrupt,  tainted  with 
sin,  lost  but  for  a  revelation  from  Heaven."  (Douai's 
Ansiver  to  the  Thcists,  p.  15.)  "Private  ownership — 
that  is  the  sin  from  which  every  injustice  is  born.  It 
creates  those  frightful  sufferings  which  tempt  to  evil, 
the  fear  for  one's  life  which  is  reflected  in  sin.     And 


I36  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

still  private  ownership  was  an  historical  necessity.  As 
a  transitive  phase  from  the  first  naive  communism  of 
early  agricultural  people  to  the  modern  conscious,  de- 
veloped communism  of  the  future  society  it  was  neces- 
sary, and  in  so  far — good.  It  created  modern  civiliza- 
tion with  its  high  intelligence  and  its  enormous  capacity 
for  achievement.  Without  the  lessons  that  men  have 
drawn  from  its  teaching  they  could  not  appreciate 
the  problems  of  economics  which  confront  us  to-day. 
It  has  had  its  day,  however.  Private  ownership  is 
an  evil  to-day,  because  it  belongs  to  an  outgrown  sys- 
tem. It  impedes  the  growth  of  communism.  Out  of 
this  conflict  evil  is  born.  Do  away  then  with  private 
ownership  and  you  do  away  with  the  conflict,  the 
evil." 

Such  is  the  standpoint  of  the  Social  Democracy.  It 
would  be  futile  to  attempt  to  refute  the  utter 
miscomprehension  of  the  independence  of  man's  spir- 
itual life  which  is  betrayed  in  such  sentences.  The 
Social  Democrats  have  never,  in  fact,  taken  such  a 
latitudinarianism  seriously.  Remember,  for  example, 
the  way  in  which  Marx  lashes  capital  in  his  great 
work,  or  read  all  the  fierce  attacks  of  Social  Demo- 
cratic pamphlets  against  the  "slave-spirit"  of  Chris- 
tianity, against  the  immorality  of  Christian  society, 
against  the  insatiable  greed  of  the  "profit-makers," 
and  then  decide  whether  or  not  the  Social  Democrats 
"recognize  sin."  None  are  so  radically  opposed  to 
evil,  or  fight  it  so  resolutely  as  Socialists.  The  very 
greatest  value  of  their  literature  is  the  energy  with 
which  they  combat  the  lower  impulses  of  the  human 
heart — greed,  laziness,  cruelty — an  energy  which  can 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  1 37 

be  compared  only  with  the  denunciations  of  the  Old 
Testament  prophets.  What  the  Social  Democrats  say 
about  the  origin  of  evil,  its  relative  importance,  etc., 
in  a  "scientific"  way  is  only  theory — untenable,  fool- 
ish, superficial,  if  you  please ;  but  theory  born  out 
of  the  desperate  endeavor  to  get  great  impulses  ex- 
pressed in  language ;  the  attempt  to  explain  philo- 
sophically a  condition  which  takes  hold  of  them  so 
seriously  that  they  are  at  a  loss  to  grasp  it  in  terms 
of  theology.  And  in  fact  the  "shallowness"  of  the 
Social  Democratic  doctrine  of  sin  is  a  great  advance 
over  the  position  held  by  the  Church.  In  the  treat- 
ment accorded  to  sin  by  the  Social  Democrats  zve  see 
the  conviction  that  sin  is  a  factor  with  which  progress 
need  not  reckon  at  all. 

But  exactly  this  is  the  message  of  the  Gospel — 
that  sin  hath  power  no  more ! 

2. 

The  Gospel  and  the  Social  Democracy  touch  each 
other  at  no  point  so  clearly  as  in  the  doctrine  of  sin. 
The  Gospel  says :  "One  thing  alone  is  of  worth  and 
weight — the  Kingdom  of  God."  The  Social  Democ- 
racy says :  "One  thing  alone  is  real  and  true — Man 
and  the  Kingdom  of  Man." 

The  Social  Democracy  refuses  {zvhy,  is  unimport- 
ant) to  let  sin  count.  So  does  the  Gospel.  Thrones, 
principalities,  princedoms,  powers,  as  St.  Paul  says, 
laws,  ideas,  standpoints,  errors,  evils,  sins,  all  the 
powers  that  bind  and  fetter  men,  fall  to  the  ground  be- 
fore the  Gospel.  So  do  they  before  the  Social 
Democracy. 

The  sole  Power  here  is  the  living  God — there  the 


I38  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

living  man.  Are  these  two  irreconcilable  opposites, 
or  are  they  not  rather  the  two  poles  on  which  the  life 
of  man  turns?  Does  not  man  belong  to  God,  accord- 
ing to  the  Gospel?  And  is  it  not  true  then  that  noth- 
ing, nothing  can  stand  between  man  and  God— not 
even  sin?     (Romans  8.) 

Since  the  coming  of  the  Gospel  a  tremendous  en- 
ergy has  taken  hold  upon  the  torpor  and  deadness 
of  men — an  energy  for  long  centuries  hidden  under 
masses  of  rubbish,  then  breaking  forth  in  mighty 
springs  to  bring  new  life  to  peoples :  the  energy  against 
sin ! 

This  energy  was  lacking  in  the  antique  civiliza- 
tion— therefore  the  antique  civilization  fell.  The 
sages  and  philosophers  of  Greece  and  Rome  discussed 
evil  and  wished  it  removed,  but  they  had  no  unquench- 
able conviction  to  bring  into  the  field  against  it. 
They  were  paralyzed  by  the  illusion  that  evil  is  a  nec- 
essary feature  of  human  life,  ordained  by  fate.  This 
acquiescence  in  evil  was  the  tomb  of  their  civiliza- 
tion. 

Then  came  the  Gospel  with  its  fire  of  conviction. 
But  afterwards  a  secularized  Christianity  yielded  to 
the  pagan  error  of  the  inevitableness  of  sin.  Again 
the  Church  preached  of  hell,  and  Christian  philosophy 
discussed  the  omnipotence  of  evil.  Now  comes  the 
Social  Democracy  and  witnesses  against  this  necessity 
of  evil,  and  again  there  flames  up  in  a  million  hearts 
in  a  thousand  places  the  energy  against  sin ! 

3- 

What  is  the  teaching  of  the  Gospel?     "I  will  not 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  1 39 

deal  with  them  after  their  sins  nor  reward  them  ac- 
cording to  their  iniquities."  (Psalms,  103.)  This  policy 
of  God  already  hinted  at  in  the  Old  Testament  is 
carried  into  effect  in  the  New.  In  dealing  with  the 
relations  between  God  and  men  the  Old  Testament 
takes  account  of  sin ;  the  New  does  not.  That  is,  in 
a  word,  the  difference  between  the  two.  St.  Paul, 
for  example,  says :  "God  has  set  before  us  Jesus  as  a 
propitiation  through  faith  in  his  blood,  in  order  that 
he  may  show  forth  his  righteousness  in  that  he  for- 
gives sin  which  till  now  was  under  divine  patience." 
(Romans,  3,  25.)  "As  now  through  one  man's  sin  came 
condemnation  into  the  world,  so  by  one  man's  right- 
eousness justification  has  come  to  all  men."  (Ro- 
mans, 5,  18.)  (See  also  Romans,  5,  21 ;  6,  2;  4,  it.) 
The  entire  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  devoted  to  the 
consideration  that  under  the  old  covenant  sin  regulated 
the  relations  of  man  to  God.  But  now  "with  one 
sacrifice  it  is  done  away  forever."  (Hebrews,  10,  14.) 
(See  also  Ch.  9,  14-26;  10,  16-22;  Colossians,  2,  13-15.) 
The  New  Testament  does  not  deny  the  fact  of 
sin,  nor  the  power  of  sin,  but  it  denies  its  value  as  a 
factor  in  human  life.  Sin  has  been  conquered,  con- 
quered once  for  all  by  Jesus  on  the  Cross.  God  reck- 
ons with  sin  no  more.  To  believe  in  God  is  to  cease 
to  believe  in  sin,  to  bear  in  one's  heart  the  energy  of 
the  living  God.  What  is  salvation?  What  is  grace? 
What  is  Christian  life?  Only  the  energy  of  the  living 
God.  All  that  the  early  Christians  asked  of  religious 
or  theological  knowledge  was  the  manifestation  of 
this  creative  energy.  All  knowledge,  dogma,  philos- 
ophy which  exists  for  itself  is  false.     In  true  Chris- 


I40  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

tianity  there  is  no  doctrine  that  is  not  also  deed. 
There  ideal  and  real,  word  and  act,  knowledge  and 
conduct  are  one — the  spirit  of  the  Lord  rules  all ! 

This  is  why  the  Gospel  is  the  victory  over  the 
world  and  its  sin.  He  who  believes  in  the  Gospel 
banishes  evil.  He  who  bows  before  evil  brings  the 
Gospel  to  shame.  He  who  says,  We  cannot  help  evil, 
it  is  here ;  we  cannot  make  the  world  other  than  it  is, 
he  is  not  a  Christian  but  a  pagan. 

4- 

But  this  is  not  the  standpoint  of  the  official  Chris- 
tian Church.  The  Church  has  lost  its  energy  against 
sin,  and  has  let  sin  again  interpose  between  it  and  God. 
Therefore  the  Church  has  fallen  into  the  power  of 
lies.  All  its  works  and  ceremonies,  its  piety  and 
dogma  are  founded  hereon.  The  Christian  religion 
lives  by  sin.  The  Church  separates  God  and  man, 
for  it  is  founded  upon  sin.  The  Church  reckons 
with  hell,  its  activity  is  all  inspired  by  the  sense  of  fear 
of  evil.  It  is  impractical,  contemplative,  turned  to- 
ward the  future.  It  leaves  mundane  things  to  take 
their  course.  It  is  reconciled  to  the  tyranny  of  sin. 
So  it  has  become  a  curse  for  men,  not  a  blessing.  It 
has  deserted  the  living  God — it  recognises  evil. 

Is  it  not  true  that  the  Church  is  founded  on  sin? 
On  account  of  sin  the  pope  sits  on  his  lofty  throne; 
on  account  of  sin  the  village  priest  reads  the  mass. 
For  the  sake  of  sin  the  cloisters  are  built,  wherein 
men  imprison  themselves  because  they  cannot  bear 
the  fear  of  hell.  In  the  fear  of  sin  the  Church  has  de- 
veloped the  sacraments,  and  brought  princes  and 
peoples  to  its  confessional.     A  pious  soul  kneels  be- 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  I4I 

fore  the  saint's  image.  The  prayer  is  a  cry  of  fear; 
its  object,  forgiveness;  its  desire,  release.  A  lonely 
man  struggles  in  his  cloister  cell ;  he  cannot  find 
peace,  he  cannot  trust  in  his  God  and  what  stands 
between  him  and  God  is  sin.  Elsewhere  great  armies 
go  on  pilgrimages  to  a  sacred  spot.  They  are  driven 
by  the  hope  of  a  milder  fate  on  the  judgment  day.. 
And  if  you  raise  your  eyes  to  heaven,  where  one 
would  think  peace  reigns,  what  will  you  see?  Innu- 
merable ranks  of  holy  intercessors  who  surround 
God's  throne  to  show  forth  their  merits,  that  they  may 
plead  them  on  behalf  of  their  erring  brothers  who 
are  still  in  the  sorrowful  vale  of  earth. 

But  such  superficiality  brings  its  own  punish- 
ment. Where  the  air  is  pest-laden  with  sin,  where 
every  divine  thought  is  poisoned  with  sin,  there 
spring  up  pride  and  presumption.  Man  does  not  en- 
dure this  contradiction  in  himself.  He  therefore  be- 
gins to  play  with  sin.  He  does  not  take  sin  seriously, 
precisely  because  it  is  depicted  to  him  as  the  only 
serious  thing.  When  he  sees  easy  forgiveness  in  store 
for  him,  and  a  whole  race  of  priests  whose  business 
it  is  to  mediate  absolution,  then  he  laughs  at  sin's  ter- 
rors. He  compounds  with  God.  To-day  wickedness 
— to-morrow  confession.  This  everlasting  talk  of  sin 
has  spoiled  him.  He  may  sin,  for  he  trusts  the  Holy 
Church  whose  business  it  is  to  forgive  sin.  Is  it  not 
the  boast  of  the  Church  that  it  reaches  every  son  with 
its  forgiveness? 

5- 

Whole  nations  have  perished  on  account  of  this 
frightful  futility  of  soul.     The  Church  is  the  stag- 


142  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

gering  example  that  taking  sin  seriously  leads  to  tak- 
ing it  lightly.  All  the  institutions  and  sacraments  of 
forgiveness  are  only  screens  behind  which  the  lust  of 
sin  shields  itself.  There  is  only  one  seriousness  which 
does  not  change  into  its  opposite  in  men's  lives — 
the  seriousness  for  God.  Only  he  who  is  sure  of  God 
can  conquer  sin ;  he  who  is  sure  of  sin  becomes  its 
slave. 

No  wonder  that  the  Church,  that  grandiose  insti- 
tution for  pardon,  has  no  energy  against  sin.  Had  it 
been  a  Church  of  God  instead  of  the  church  of  sin, 
it  would  have  long  ago  got  rid  of  sin  in  the  world. 
Like  a  living  fire  there  would  have  sprung  from  its 
spirit  the  great  powers  of  justice  and  righteousness, 
which  work  irresistibly  in  men,  which  talk  not  of 
"impossibilities,"  dream  not  of  "inevitabilities,"  which 
act  as  they  must  act ;  which  drive  all  timid  considera- 
tions before  them  as  the  storm-wind  drives  the  dry 
leaves;  which  know  no  law  save — This  must  be! 

Where  God  rules  there  rules  the  energy  against 
sin.  Where  is  an  injustice  that  dares  flourish  in  His 
presence?  Where  are  the  falsities  that  dare  claim 
alliance  with  Him?  Where  are  the  lies  and  deceits 
that  dare  comfort  themselves  in  His  name?  Must 
not  wealth  cease  to  sun  itself  in  the  miseries  of  the 
poor  when  God's  energy  fills  all  hearts?  Must  not 
the  oppression,  cruelty  and  robbery  of  the  rich  cease 
when  God's  power  is  revealed?  Nothing,  nothing 
withstands  God's  power.  But  the  Church  has  rejected 
Him.  It  believes  no  longer  in  God  ;  it  believes  in  Satan. 
It  deals  with  hell  and  haggles  with  sin.    It  is  a  den  of 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  I43 

thieves  and  a  house  of  merchandise.  It  "recognizes" 
sin.     Therefore  it  has  become  a  curse  to  the  nations. 

Has  the  Church  not  permitted  every  evil  and  in- 
justice? Is  not  its  name  everywhere  invoked  when 
wickedness  celebrates  its  triumphs?  Who  has  offered 
the  sword  bloodier  tasks,  who  has  set  up  more  scaf- 
folds than  the  Church?  What  power  invented  the 
refined  instruments  of  torture  in  the  Middle  Ages? 
Was  it  not  the  Church,  whose  lips  always  overflowed 
with  the  acknowledgment  of  sin,  and  whose  offices 
offered  an  asylum  from  the  punishment  of  sin?  What 
more  fearful  irony ! 

In  the  conscience  of  a  Saxon  monk  this  inconsist- 
ency revealed  itself.  The  strong  hand  of  Luther  tore 
in  shreds  this  bogy  of  sin,  when  the  truth  of  the  scrip- 
ture burst  upon  him:  "The  just  shall  live  by  faith." 
He  was  privileged  to  see  what  no  man  before  him  saw, 
that  all  the  works  of  the  Church,  its  ceremonies,  sacra- 
ments, dogmas,  efforts  and  pains,  its  whole  "piety" 
was  a  torment — a  service  of  sin  and  not  a  service  of 
God.  The  Gospel's  simple  truth  shone  in  upon  his 
soul  that  there  is  but  one  power,  one  rule,  one  reality — 
the  living  God  in  Jesus  Christ.  And  as  soon  as  Lu- 
ther and  the  cloud  of  witnesses  with  him  to  this  truth 
began  to  preach,  there  fell  on  the  people  the  cooling 
showers  of  peace  in  the  certitude  of  the  living  God. 
Christendom  again  understood  what  it  meant  to  trust 
the  living  God,  to  serve  and  worship  Him  alone.  It 
felt  again  the  creative  strength  that  abides  in  this  cer- 
titude. It  experienced  the  truth  that  he  who  has  God 
has  with  Him  all  things.  Everywhere  the  desire  was 
born  to  shake  off  the  old  chains  of  dogma  and  'he 


144  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

rule  of  sin.  Men  lived  in  the  conviction  that  a  new 
world  must  come.  Had  not  the  Lord  through  His 
mighty  spirit  said:  "Behold  I  make  all  things  new." 
So  to  the  work!  Righteousness,  truth,  love,  peace,  all 
the  powers  of  God — bring  them  to  fruition,  live  them 
everywhere !  Everywhere — except  in  the  social  life. 
When  the  impulse  began  to  spread  here,  and  economic 
conditions  began  to  clamor  for  the  light  of  the  Gospel, 
then  the  Reformers  (after  a  moment's  wavering") 
ruthlessly  struck  that  movement  down.* 

The  Church  had  played  with  sin  too  long,  had 
looked  to  heaven  too  long,  while  overlooking  the  in- 
justice which  was  before  its  very  eyes.  Even  while 
the  Reformers  were  witnessing  against  this  Church 
they  transported  into  the  new  foundation  the  gravest 
fault  of  the  old — the  weakness  against  sin. 

6. 
From  that  day  on  the  evangelical  Churches  too 
have  held  to  the  doctrine  that  sin  cannot  be  overcome 
in  this  world.  The  evangelical  dogmas,  too,  are  orient- 
ed from  the  standpoint  of  sin,  and  incomprehensible 
without  the  assumption  of  sin.  No  hint  that  the  King- 
dom of  God  has  conquered  the  kingdom  of  evil,  and 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  victor  over  sin  and  death.  Hell, 
whose  doors  Christ  closed,  rose  in  new  might  when 
the  evangelical  Church  began  to  preach  its  doctrine — 
a  faith  in  hell,  more  than  a  faith  in  God.  All  the 
blindness,  all  the  quarrels,  the  cruelty,  the  folly  which 


♦For  a  vivid  and  sympathetic  account  of  the  Peasants' 
Revolt  of  the  sixteenth  century,  here  referred  to,  see  Chap- 
ter VII.  of  "The  Lamb  Slain  from  the  Foundation  of  the 
World,"  by  Richard  Heath. 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  I45 

make  so  many  dark  pages  in  the  Church's  history  have 
but  one  source — the  recognition  of  the  power  of  sin. 
At  one  and  the  same  time,  there  have  been,  on  the 
one  hand,  an  inner,  soul-felt  Christian  faith,  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  poverty,  misery,  degeneration,  endured 
by  these  same  Christians  and  accepted  by  them  as  an 
inevitable  fate.  And  they  have  not  seen  the  frightful 
falsehood  of  this  contradiction,  they  let  the  horror 
live.  That  was  the  impotence  of  the  Church  against 
sin. 

There  is  only  one  task  for  Christians — protest 
against  sin.  Of  what  use  to  protest  against  the  Cath- 
olic Church  when  this  protestation  itself  bows  before 
the  very  evil  that  has  ruined  Catholicism?  Why  so 
half-hearted !  Why,  O  Protestant  Church,  art  thou 
filled  with  horror  at  the  Pope  declaring  himself  infal- 
lible, and  yet  hast  no  horror  for  the  infallibility  of 
Mammon  which  obsesses  all  minds  ?  Why  such  indig- 
nant words  against  the  superstitions  of  the  "Catholics," 
and  none  against  the  superstitions  of  greed  and  avar- 
ice? What  touches  your  creed  rouses  elemental  fury 
within  you,  but  what  smirches  the  honor  of  the  Gospel 
you  admit  as  "inevitable,"  ordained  of  God.  You  will 
not  suffer  your  system  to  be  gainsaid,  but  only  God. 
You  speculate  on  the  origin  of  evil,  on  the  magnitude 
of  various  sins,  on  man's  responsibility,  on  the  fall  and 
redemption.  All  this  you  find  instructive,  useful,  edi- 
fying— yes,  even  as  edifying  as  that  which  has  con- 
quered all  evil — the  cross  of  Christ !  You  have  great 
energy  of  spirit  for  orthodoxy  and  for  freedom  of 
thought,  but  energy  for  God  is  unknown  to  you!  It 
appears  to  you  only  mysticism  and  exaggeration ;  you 


I46  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

detect  beneath  it  the  heresy  of  not  taking  sin  "serious- 
ly" enough. 

You  have  apparently  no  conception  of  the  truth 
that  the  evangelical  faith  was  born  of  the  confidence 
that  the  power  of  sin  was  broken  and  must  cease.  The 
evangelical  creed !  it  is  only  an  orthodox  sheet  of  paper 
for  you.  You  say :  "My  Lord  and  my  God !"  but 
where  is  your  God !  Have  you  any  right  to  accuse 
the  Roman  Church  of  the  worship  of  idols? 

The  theses,  the  systems,  the  points  of  view,  the 
dogmas  which  crowd  each  other  within  the  hundred 
sects  of  Protestantism,  are  they  not  so  many  spiritual 
idols  hiding  the  living  God? 

If  the  living  God  were  your  God  these  idols  would 
fall ;  you  would  rub  the  sleep  from  your  eyes  and  put 
on  the  helmet  of  salvation,  the  breastplate  of  right- 
eousness, the  shield  of  faith  and  the  sword  of  the 
spirit.  Out  of  your  mouth  would  proceed  the  energy 
of  God,, the  energy  that  conquers  and  annihilates  sin. 
If  you  believed  that  only  One  rules,  then  you  would  no 
longer  plead :  I  am  powerless,  sin  is  too  strong  for  me. 
No !  you  would  abolish  greed  and  lust — those  lies  that 
now  choke  your  religion ;  you  would  abolish  the  enmi- 
ties and  quarrels  of  your  different  sects,  hatred,  anger, 
uncleanness,  pride,  cowardice  and  unmanliness.  Then 
you  would  comprehend  the  energy  against  sin. 

7- 
Our  whole  civilization  is  pagan,  not  Christian.    All 

that  is  lacking  is  the  return  explicitly  to  the  old  gods, 

the  worship  at  their  shrines.    Who  knows  how  long  it 

will  be  before  Jupiter  and  Venus  have  their  temples? 

The  inclination  is  not  wanting  in  our  immoral  society. 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  I47 

But  we  see  nothing  surprising  in  this.  When  the 
Church  hesitates  between  God  and  Mammon,  when  it 
reckons  with  evil  as  with  a  decree  of  fate,  when  it  thus 
opens  its  own  doors  to  paganism,  such  a  result  as  our 
modern  civilization  shows  us — outward  splendor  and 
inzvard  despair — is  not  especially  remarkable.  It  is  not 
strange,  for  example,  that  our  mill  owners  and  factory- 
kings  regard  workers  as  simply  the  material  for  Mam- 
mon to  use.  Did  not  a  Protestant  minister  himself — 
Malthus — indisputably  prove  by  statistics  that  there 
are  far  too  many  births  and,  that  hence  the  struggle 
for  existence,  with  its  sufferings  and  its  horrors,  is  a 
divine  necessity?  Can  we  wonder  at  human  brutality 
when  for  the  most  shameful  infamies  such  indulgent 
names  are  found  as  "struggle  for  existence,"  "selec- 
tion," "right  of  the  strong"?  Infamies?  Who  calls 
them  such?  Why  only  men  who  through  bigotry  or 
stupidity  fail  to  appreciate  the  triumphs  of  the  new 
civilization.  Does  not  every  child  know  that  there  are 
no  infamies  or  outrages — that  all  is  logical  and  neces- 
sary— that  law  and  order  rule? 

Such  is  the  conviction  of  the  majority  of  men  in 
our  modern  cultured  society.  And  why  should  it  not 
be?  If  God  has  indeed  ordered  things  as  they  are,  then 
J  lis  honor  requires  that  we  should  be  as  familiar  as 
possible  with  evil,  that  we  should  not  let  ourselves  be 
moved  by  the  sight  of  its  victims  as  they  stretch  out 
miserable  hands  to  us.  We  know  the  necessity  of  their 
sufferings :  only  they,  in  their  ignorance,  do  not  know 
it. 

Who  speaks  of  hardheartedness,  cruelty,  unfeeling- 
ness?    Is  not  the  sole  cruelty  that  of  teaching  men  to 


I48  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

believe  in  mercy,  when  we  know  that  mercy  is  only  a 
sentimental  lie?  The  man  who  recognizes  sin  as  a 
natural  thing  subjects  himself  to  the  censure  of  cruel- 
ty when  he  protests  against  the  works  of  sin.  For  it 
is  cruel  to  awaken  hopes  which  science  knows  are  only 
vain  creations  of  the  brain. 

Only  the  man  who  does  not  believe  in  evil,  and  will 
not  bend  before  its  necessity,  has  the  right  to  speak 
of  the  social  question.  But  in  the  morass  of  our  pres- 
ent life  who  are  they  that  dare  not  to  believe  in  evil? 
The  conservatives  ?  No !  They  see  God's  hand  in  the 
woes  and  ruins  which  sin  brings.  The  liberals?  No! 
They  speak  of  social  evolution,  of  the  necessity  of 
classes  and  grades,  of  the  rights  of  property,  and  the 
like.  The  Church  ?  No !  It  lisps  its  pious  precepts, 
it  mulls  over  the  inscrutable  decrees  of  God  and 
prates  of  a  better  land  beyond  the  grave.  It  bows  be- 
fore the  evil  that  sin  has  created.  It  is  impotent. 
Where  are  the  hearts  that  still  hope,  the  souls  that 
still  believe?  Who  are  the  men  and  women  who  are 
not  dismayed,  who  look  for  better  days,  who  are  bring- 
ing in  the  victory  of  good  ? 

They  are  the  Social  Democrats ! 

Is  it  not  hope  and  salvation  for  our  despairing 
world  that  there  is  still  a  party  that  denies  the  might 
of  sin,  and  refuses  to  believe  in  the  triumph  of  evil? 
When  the  Social  Democrats  began  to  preach,  the  old 
established  society  greeted  their  Utopias  with  scorn. 
Their  journals  were  forbidden,  their  speakers  were 
persecuted.  State  and  Church  banded  together  to  stifle 
the  noxious  doctrine  in  its  infancy.  Yet  to-day  the 
Social  Democrats  are  the  most  powerful,  consolidated 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  1 49 

and  purposeful  party  among  us.    Why?    They  refuse 

to  believe  in  evil! 

8. 

Whoever  does  not  believe  in  evil,  the  future  is  his! 

Antiquity  said :  We  are  the  creatures  of  fate ;  all  is 
vanity;  there  is  no  purpose  in  things;  our  life  is  as 
nothing.  Then  came  Jesus  Christ  and  broke  the  bonds 
of  fatalism.  An  old,  spent  Church  said :  There  is  noth- 
ing new  in  men.  Then  came  the  Reformers  and  woke 
new  and  undreamed  of  powers.  Decadent  modern  phi- 
losophy drones  its  monotone :  There  is  nothing  but 
cause  and  effect,  mechanism,  fatality.  And  in  the 
midst  of  the  sigh  of  philosophy  is  already  heard  the 
mighty  trumpet-tone  of  the  Social  Democracy. 

The  Social  Democracy  is  tirelessly  active,  irresisti- 
ble. It  makes  a  way  through  old  underbrush  of  cus- 
tom and  convention.  It  splits  the  rocks  asunder  and 
moves  mountains.  It  fills  the  valleys  and  dries  the 
streams.  It  makes  the  crooked  straight,  the  rough 
smooth,  the  sick  well.  Do  you  wonder  why?  It  is  be- 
cause it  does  not  believe  in  the  power  of  evil.  God's 
spirit  breathes  upon  it. 

To  live  means  to  believe  not  in  evil ;  to  say  to  sin, 
Cease !  It  means  to  strive  for  a  world  clear  as  the  sun. 
That  is  the  life  which  Jesus  reveals.  The  Social  De- 
mocracy to-day  drinks  from  the  spring  of  his  inspira- 
tion. Therefore  it  lives,  while  all  other  parties  are 
dead. 

What  is  it  that  the  Social  Democrats  demand? 
They  demand  that  private  ownership  shall  be  changed 
into  common  ownership.  Never  has  so  mighty  a  de- 
mand been  made  on  society,  never  a  more  wonderful 


150  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

program  conceived.  Judge  as  we  may  of  its  practica- 
bility— it  takes  a  mighty  faith  earnestly  to  cherish 
such  a  program.  To  abolish  the  unjust  state  and  our 
traditional  form  of  society ;  it  is  almost  incomprehensi- 
ble how  rational  beings  could  set  up  such  an  aim — the 
boldest,  the  most  comprehensive  the  world  has  ever 
known.  To  substitute  for  the  various  jealous  nations 
of  to-day  a  world-brotherhood.  A  mere  dream  surely. 
Nay,  they  really  believe  such  a  brotherhood  is  coming 
— believe  it  with  Isaiah,  with  Jesus,  with  the  Apostles. 
Our  society,  bound  as  it  is  to  Mammon,  cannot  under- 
stand these  ideals.  It  judges  the  words  of  the  Social 
Democrats  as  foolish,  enthusiastic  dreams ;  because  the 
Social  Democrats  have  thrown  away  the  standpoints 
of  little  faith,  of  despair  and  of  world-wisdom  which 
control  all  our  thinking.  Nothing  is  easier  than  to 
call  such  an  attitude  folly — and  nothing  more  pitiable ! 


If  it  is  true,  as  one  of  the  opponents  of  the  Social 
Democracy  says,  that  "so  long  as  the  world  stands  men 
will  remain  as  they  are,  full  of  selfish  interests  and 
desires"  (Otto  Hamann,  The  Communistic  Society, 
pp.  64-65),  why  then  have  the  very  spirits  that  have 
refused  to  believe  this  commonplace  always  had  the 
greatest  influence  on  their  contemporaries  and  on  pos- 
terity? Measured  by  this  wisdom,  Jesus  was  a  fool- 
ish dreamer,  the  Apostles  were  senseless  idealists,  the 
Reformers  crazy  innovators.  But  we  live  to-day  by 
their  "follies"  and  most  by  the  greatest  of  them  all — 
the  faith  in  the  victory  of  God  over  the  evil.  Eradi- 
cate that  faith  from  the  hearts  of  men  and  they  sink 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  151 

to  the  level  of  brutes.  If  we  were  the  half-men  that 
the  opponents  of  the  Socialists  say  we  are,  without 
any  absolute  ideal  or  demand  in  our  nature,  without 
the  eternal  truths  that  fill  our  bosom,  then  life  would 
be  poor  indeed.  Are  the  truths  of  man's  life  all  to  be 
found  on  the  surface?  Is  the  first  commonplace  that 
comes  to  hand  eternal  truth?  Is  only  that  true  which 
we  handle  with  our  hands  and  see  with  our  eyes  ?  Nay, 
rather,  that  is  true  which  we  bear  upon  a  forceful  will, 
that  which  bursts  our  petty  life  asunder  and  opens 
eternal  perspectives  for  us ! 

And  why  always  separate  this  world  from  another? 
Why  forever  say,  "So  long  as  this  world  stands"  this 
or  that  will  not  be?  Does  not  this  really  mean  "I  do 
not  believe  in  any  other  world"?  Eternity  has  no 
when  and  where.  Man  must  will,  must  dare,  must  be- 
lieve, then  man  seizes  upon  eternity.  "Folly" — to  be 
sure !  but  what  right  has  our  cold  philistinism  to  set 
up  the  standards  of  judgment?  Because  our  self-in- 
dulgent society  does  not  believe  that  things  will  ever 
be  different  on  this  earth,  because  it  has  made  so  close 
a  league  with  evil  that  it  is  no  longer  able  to  see  be- 
yond its  own  dark  horizon,  shall  it  therefore  arrogate 
to  itself  the  right  to  judge  new  and  fresh  impulses? 
Men  will  not  be  better,  it  says.  What  men?  Those 
who  are  mirrored  in  their  own  littleness,  or  those  who 
are  moving  beyond  their  ken  to  a  glorious  future? 
If  you  have  faith  no  more,  shall  all  men  be  faithless? 
If  you  have  ceased  to  believe,  must  all  men  cease?  If 
your  flames  of  hope  have  sunk  to  ashes,  shall  no  more 
fires  spring  up  in  the  hearts  of  men?    But  why  reason 


152  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

with  you — you  have  no  eyes  for  these  things.    No  one 
should  demand  of  you  more  than  you  are  capable  of. 

10. 

But  why  do  men  who  still  have  a  grasp  on  high 
and  noble  things  give  forth  such  incomprehensible 
words  as  these:  "Dreamers  have  never  understood 
anything  about  men's  sins.  They  have  always  looked 
on  sin  as  a  certain  stain  which  the  waters  of  good  for- 
tune could  wash  out.  So  do  the  Social  Democrats  un- 
derstand it.  They  judge  the  men  of  this  capitalistic 
age,  especially  the  rich,  with  a  harder  judgment  than 
any  zealous  preacher  of  fasts  and  penance,  and,  mira- 
bile  dicta,  they  pass  from  this  ethical  pessimism  to  a 
touching  ethical  optimism  as  soon  as  they  begin  to 
speak  of  the  future.  We  know  what  sin  is — the  fun- 
damental corruption  of  the  heart  estranged  from  God. 
And  this  is  why  we  answer  the  whole  ethical  system, 
present  and  future,  of  the  Social  Democracy  with  the 
single  word:  Dreams."  (Fr.  Naumann,  What  do  We 
do  Against  the  Faithless  Social  Democracy?) 

In  spirit  I  see  a  man  in  a  long  mantle,  preaching  to 
the  inhabitants  of  a  great  city;  "And  it  shall  come  to 
pass  in  the  last  days  that  the  mountain  of  the  Lord's 
house  shall  be  established  in  the  top  of  the  mountains, 
and  shall  be  exalted  above  the  hills,  and  all  nations 
shall  flow  into  it.  And  many  people  shall  go  and 
shall  say,  Come  ye,  and  let  us  go  up  to  the  mountain 
of  the  Lord,  to  the  house  of  the  God  of  Jacob;  and 
He  will  teach  us  of  His  ways  and  we  will  walk  in  His 
paths ;  for  out  of  Zion  shall  go  forth  the  law,  and  the 
word  of  the  Lord  from  Jerusalem.  And  He  shall 
judge  among  the  nations,  and  shall  rebuke  many  peo- 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  1 53 

pie ;  and  they  shall  beat  their  swords  into  plow-shares 
and  their  spears  into  pruning-hooks.  Nation  shall 
not  lift  up  sword  against  nation,  neither  shall  they 
learn  war  any  more."     (Isaiah  2,  2-4.) 

How  did  these  words  sound  in  the  ears  of  the  God- 
forgetting  people  of  Jerusalem!  All  who  heard  them 
were  convinced  that  the  greatest  of  dreamers  was  be- 
fore them.  Even  in  those  days  they  "knew  what  sin 
was"  and  for  the  ethical  system  of  Isaiah,  present  and 
future,  they  had  the  one  word :  Dreams ! 

Does  not  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  teach  us  to  preach 
this  very  "foolishness"?  What  kind  of  salvation  is 
it  that  does  not  loose  the  fetters  of  sin,  what  kind  of 
redemption  that  is  still  covered  with  the  black  shadow 
of  evil?  Why  did  Jesus  on  the  cross  cry,  "It  is  fin- 
ished"— if  the  powers  of  hell  and  darkness  still  rule! 

We  preach  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  when  we  announce 
that  all  powers,  principalities  and  thrones,  sin  and 
hell  have  sunk  to  the  dust.  Only  One  rules — the  living 
God !  We  preach  the  Gospel  when  in  the  midst  of  the 
domain  of  sin  we  set  up  the  Kingdom  of  the  living 
God!  Why  this  continual  talk  of  sin?  Why  speak 
now  of  corruption,  now  of  redemption,  now  of  heaven, 
now  of  hell?    Why  not  speak  of  God  alone? 

"But,"  you  say,  "for  all  that,  sin  is  here,  and  the 
Social  Democrats  flatly  deny  its  presence."  O,  why 
this  anxiety  as  to  what  the  Social  Democrats  say, 
when  you  are  convinced  that  this  "godless  party"  is 
a  negligible  quantity?  To  be  sure,  their  negation  of  sin 
is  a  solecism,  a  theory  in  the  air ;  but  why  will  you 
not  see  what  is  behind  this  theory — that  it  is  that  very 
Gospel,  that   "good  news"  that  has  long  been   kept. 


154  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

under  by  the  Christian  Church?  The  impulse  which 
drives  the  Social  Democrats  to  this  denial  is  the  im- 
pulse of  the  Gospel.  And  when  rightly  understood, 
when  seen  in  its  grand  significance,  there  is  no  more 
hopeful  sign  in  the  world  than  this  with  which  Chris- 
tians reproach  the  Social  Democrats :  "They  do  not 
recognize  sin." 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  1 55 


CHAPTER  VI. 

"THE    SOCIAL    DEMOCRACY    BELIEVES    ONLY    IN    MATTER 
AND  REJECTS  SPIRIT/'' 

But  now  comes  the  strongest  objection  of  all 
against  the  Social  Democrats ;  it  is  that  they  believe 
in  no  future  life,  that  they  ignore  spiritual  things  and 
recognize  only  the  material.  Their  religion  is  ma- 
terialism, which  leads  to  a  dissolute  pursuit  of  pleasure 
and  to  the  unchaining  of  the  animal  instincts.  Let  us 
now  examine  this  charge. 

1. 

"Matter  is  a  secondary  thing.  It  is  only  the  scene 
where  God  has  put  men  for  this  life.  It  will  pass 
away.  So  long  as  we  are  in  this  material  world  we  are 
subject  to  sin,  stained  with  sin.  Matter  hinders  our 
spirit  from  its  full  development.  And  so  our  earthly 
task  is  to  strip  from  ourselves  all  material  bonds  so 
far  as  possible.  To  give  matter  much  consideration, 
to  make  it  the  standard  for  the  estimate  of  men's  hap- 
piness and  worth,  as  the  Social  Democrats  do,  is  a 
fatal  error.  It  is  placing  spirit  under  the  yoke  of  mat- 
ter. But  matter  is  here  only  that  spirit  may  win  its 
own  by  antagonism  thereto.  Matter  itself  signifies 
nothing !" 

Matter  signifies  nothing!  So  speaks  Christianity 
since  the  Platonic  philosophy  replaced  the  spirit  of  the 
Gospel.  And  Christianity  knows  not  what  it  says. 
Never  has  a  greater  piece  of  irony  been  spoken,  never 


I56  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

a  greater  lie  believed  than  this  "Christian"  doctrine 
of  the  insignificance  of  matter. 

"We  despise  matter,  we  deliver  spirit  from  its 
bonds,  we  celebrate  our  chief  triumph  in  fleeing  the 
temptations  of  the  body."  So  spoke  the  great  leaders 
of  the  Church.  They  built  mighty  cathedrals  to  the 
spirit,  they  erected  numberless  cloisters  and  established 
quiet  retreats  for  prayer — but  before  long  the  walls  of 
these  temples  of  the  spirit  became  the  scene  of  the 
noisy  orgies  of  materialism.  Even  the  heroes  of  the 
spirit  who  resisted  the  invasion  of  matter,  who  by 
means  of  cruel,  pitiless  self-chastisements  sought  to 
eliminate  the  last  traces  of  the  earthly  from  their  lives, 
died  broken,  wasted,  defeated,  with  the  confession  on 
their  lips  that  this  frightful  conflict  was  a  delusion. 
Man  cannot  down  matter.  Not  alone  because  he  is 
too  weak,  but  above  all  because  God  Himself,  the  crea- 
tor of  matter,  forbids  it. 

2. 

The  Church  desires  to  establish  the  reign  of  the 
spirit  in  the  realm  of  matter;  but  meanwhile  it  heaps 
property  on  property  with  greedy  hands,  and  sees  the 
only  way  to  its  spiritual  riches  in — money.  Jesus  said, 
"Ye  cannot  serve  God  and  Mammon."  But  his  Church 
thinks  it  can  do  it:  God  with  the  lips,  Mammon  with 
the  heart.  But  the  punishment  is  fearful :  the  service 
of  God  becomes  a  pretence  for  the  service  of  Mam- 
mon. He  who  separates  spirit  and  matter  defames 
the  Creator.  The  Church  has  gone  to  pieces,  has  lost 
all  respect  and  influence,  on  account  of  this  error. 
Men   speak   of   the    Church's  insatiable  maw.      That 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  1 57 

which  the  Church  considers  its  spirituality,  men  think 
of  as  only  superstition.  It  is  no  longer  served  except 
from  calculation,  no  longer  obeyed  except  from  fear. 
It  is  up  to  its  eyes  in  matter  because  it  pretends  to  be 
spirit. 

In  this  decadence  Protestant  is  like  Catholic.  "We 
must  not  seek  for  perishing  goods" — so  cry  the  Prot- 
estant ministers,  and  all  the  while  they  are  intent 
on  bettering  their  position,  on  attaining  all  the  honors 
they  can,  establishing  themselves  comfortably  in  the 
world.  Office,  position,  influence,  the  friendship  of  the 
rich — these  are  the  moving  impulses.  "We  renounce 
every  vanity,"  chant  Christian  capitalists  at  their  de- 
votions in  the  house  of  God ;  and  on  the  morrow  they 
use  every  device  of  the  modern  wage  system  to  squeeze 
the  tribute  to  Mammon  out  of  their  employes.  The 
sects,  parties,  brotherhoods  all  talk  of  heaven,  and 
have  no  more  eager  care  than  earthly  prosperity.  And 
this  is  the  Christianity  that  boasts  to  have  conquered 
matter ! 

3. 

The  hypocrisy  of  Christianity  consists  not  so  much 
in  its  failure  to  practice  its  doctrine  of  the  conquest  of 
matter,  as  in  its  thinking  it  possible  to  lay  down  any 
such  doctrine.  Its  theory  is  false,  displeasing  to  God ; 
therefore  the  conduct  of  Christendom  must  be  hypoc- 
risy. You  cannot  be  good  Christians  because  your 
Christianity  is  false.  You  believe  that  matter  is  insig- 
nificant— but  God  created  man  of  spirit  and  matter.  You 
believe  you  must  put  off  matter — but  God  has  put  it 
on  you  and  on  all  men.  You  look  constantly  to  heaven 
— but  God  gave  men  this  earth  for  a  dwelling  place. 


I58  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

You  fight  against  God's  laws,  and  oppose  your  "Chris- 
tianity" to  his  life-commandments.  Matter  is  not  dia- 
bolic ;  the  love  of  matter — comfort  yourselves ! — is  not 
evil;  the  enjoyment  of  matter  is  not  sinful.  Even  its 
orgies  are  reactions  against  the  false  usurpation  of  a 
God-forsaking  "spirit."  Matter  is  the  seat  of  sin  only 
when  men  despise  it. 

4- 

When  man  broke  away  from  God  he  created  for 
himself  the  kingdom  of  the  spirit — of  his  own  thoughts, 
plans,  ends.  He  wanted  to  be  mighty,  to  rule 
in  a"  certain  realm — and  he  called  that  realm  "spirit." 
This  spirit  finally  succeeded  in  completely  discrediting 
matter  (in  the  Greek  philosophy).  The  body  became 
merely  a  fetter  on  the  spirit,  a  dark  prison-house  whose 
doors  were  opened  by  death  alone.  Life  became  a 
deception,  the  world  of  sense  a  lie.  Only  the  ideal, 
only  the  conceptual  was  true — not  the  created,  the 
actual.  Men  dreamed  and  wrote  of  a  world  that 
never  and  nowhere  existed,  and  the  real  world  with 
all  its  forms  and  colors  was  contemned.  Men  sacri- 
ficed their  actual  happiness,  their  present  delights,  to 
a  future  happiness  of  which  they  knew  nothing.  No 
greater  pride,  no  deeper  joy,  than  to  martyrize  the 
body  in  a  thousand  ways,  for  the  sake  of  the  spirit. 

Jesus  appeared  and  re-established  the  rights  of  crea- 
tion. He  taught  us  that  this  world  should  be  God's 
garden.     He  gave  us  back  our  joy  in  life. 

Then  men  began  again  to  see  with  seeing  eyes, 
to  hear  with  hearing  ears  and  to  understand 
with  open  senses.       Wherever  the  Christians  set  up 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  1 59 

their  dwelling  places,  the  spirit  returned  to  matter, 
to  shape  it  for  the  praise  of  the  Creator  and  to  com- 
mand it  in  God's  name.  Sin  and  vice,  the  creations 
of  the  self-glorifying  pride  of  spirit,  vanished.  Human 
intercourse  again  took  on  honest  forms.  Marriage  re- 
covered its  original  purity.  Toil  came  again  into 
honor.  Rich  and  poor  acknowledged  each  other  broth- 
ers in  a  higher  unity  of  spirit.  The  living  God  took 
the  place  of  the  phantasmagoria  which  the  cult  of 
the  "spirit"  had  produced.  No  longer  was  there  sepa- 
ration between  body  and  soul.  All  was  united  in  the 
one  great  reality  of  the  common  Creator — the  living 
God. 

5- 

But  again  men  broke  away  from  their  God  and 
attempted  to  be  wise  in  their  own  "spiritual"  power. 
And  again  it  became  apparent  that  Godlessness  is  a 
sin  against  creation.  Godlessness  appears  in  the  con- 
tempt of  matter.  Spirit  not  matter  is  the  enemy  of 
God ;  for  matter  cannot  do  evil  while  spirit  can.  It 
is  the  evil  of  the  spirit  that  has  ruined  God's  fair 
creation. 

Instead  of  bringing  the  whole  world,  with  all  its 
sufferings  and  pains,  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  to 
the  living  God ;  instead  of  making  the  Kingdom  of 
God  a  reality  on  earth,  the  Christians  began  again 
to  turn  their  longing  gaze  toward  heaven  as  if  the 
Savior  of  the  world  had  never  come  down  from  heaven 
to  earth  to  manifest  the  power  of  God.  And  as  a 
punishment  for  this  loss  of  faith,  all  the  powers,  prin- 
cipalities, thrones  of  false  spirits  asserted  anew  their 


l6o  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

old  tyranny.  Speculative  theology,  Christian  philoso- 
phy and  dogmas  appeared,  and  with  them — blindness. 
Orthodoxy  appeared,  and  with  it — stagnation.  "Spirit" 
appeared — and  with  it  the  contempt  for  matter. 

These  profound  errors  spring  directly  from  the 
misunderstanding  of  the  task  which  God  has  set  for 
Christianity  in  this  world.  The  Church  has  turned  its 
mind  to  things  that  have  no  tiling  to  do  with  the  King- 
dom of  God.  In  its  speculations  we  may  see  the  sign 
of  its  neglect  of  duty.  It  contemplates  its  own  gran- 
deur, speaks  of  its  truth,  displays  itself  in  its  piety, 
and  its  ceremonies ;  it  sets  itself  up  as  the  great  power 
to  which  all  peoples  must  submit ;  it  curses  and  blesses ; 
it  invents  fine-spun  logic  and  profound  dogmas;  it 
ascends  to  heaven  to  behold  the  mystery  of  the  Trin- 
ity, and  then  fathoms  the  depths  of  hell.  It  knows 
all,  understands  all,  embraces  all.  It  is  the  great  in- 
stitution of  salvation,  glimmering  in  its  own  splen- 
dor. Nobody  understands  why  it  must  be  so,  or  what 
good  this  splendor  serves,  for  in  this  world  men  con- 
tinue to  suffer  and  to  sigh. 

All  this  is  what  "spirit"  has  done,  and  all  had  to 
be,  because  "spirit"  would  construct  a  kingdom  of 
its  own,  which  treads  matter  under  foot  and  stamps 
the  creation  of  the  living  God  into  dust.  The  Church 
forsooth  must  philosophize,  lay  down  principles,  ana- 
thematize, must  fight  the  heretic — but  it  cannot 
help.  For  helping  the  world  means  breathing  new  life 
into  matter.  And  the  church's  key-note  is  the  despite 
of  matter.  If  the  Church  had  had  less  "spirit"  and 
more  understanding  of  matter  and  of  the  thousand  du- 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  l6l 

ties  arising  therefrom,  it  would  have  been  a  blessing 

to  the  world. 

6. 

Such  has  been  the  course  of  the  ancient  historic 
Church,  and  to-day  the  Protestant  Church  as  well  is 
fighting  the  Social  Democracy  on  the  ground  of  this 
same  one-sided,  arrogant,  "spirit"-worship.  It  fights 
with  the  shield  of  Protestant  faith  and  the  Protestant 
sword  of  the  spirit.  It  writes,  disputes,  sets  argu- 
ment against  argument,  refutes,  prophesies,  but  it  does 
not  realize  that  its  own  spirit  bears  witness  against 
it,  and  that  its  subtle  dogmas  but  mirror  its  great  sin 
of  omission  in  the  very  sphere  where  God  has  set  it 
to  work — the  material  world.  When  its  theologians 
and  preachers  come  before  the  people  with  their  ready 
conceptions  of  the  gospel,  from  whence  do  they  derive 
the  right  to  these  interpretations?  When  Stoecker 
and  Naumann,  from  the  Conservative  or  the  Social 
Reform  platform  protest  against  the  Social  Democracy, 
how  is  it  that  they  do  not  see  that  "theories"  are  borne 
away  like  straws  before  the  mighty  sweep  of  a  move- 
ment which  with  all  its  passionate  soul  demands 
realities?  How  did  Stoecker  know  that  the  amalgam 
of  Gospel  and  Fatherland,  of  the  word  of  God  and 
loyalty  to  the  king,  which  he  preached  with  such 
zeal,  was  the  authentic  word  of  God;  and  with  what 
right  did  Naumann  bring  the  social  question  into  the 
focus  of  his  Christianity?  Was  not  such  a  Chris- 
tianity simply  these  gentlemen's  own  imagination? 
Did  not  the  whole  Christian  Social  Reform  movement, 
with  its  half  questions  and  half  answers,  show  clearly 
enough  that  its  champions,  tyrannized  over  by  the  con- 


l62  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

ception  of  "spirit,"  had  not  done  any  real  thinking  on 
the  fundamental  social  questions,  the  questions  of  mat- 
ter? If  the  Church  wishes  to  have  any  influence  in 
the  social  movement,  it  must  recognize  that  the  estab- 
lishment of  righteous  economic  conditions  is  one  of 
the  most  pressing  duties  we  owe  to  the  Creator — a 
duty  no  less  than  allegiance  itself. 

The  whole  history  of  the  Church  proves  that  "spir- 
ituality" alone  is  not  able  to  control  the  realities  of 
this  earthly  life,  to  bring  them  under  a  law  of 
righteousness. 

And  from  this  point  of  view  the  "hypocrisy"  of 
the  Christian  life  is  seen  in  an  entirely  different  light. 
It  even  wakes  a  certain  sympathy  in  us — the  sympathy 
one  accords  to  the  victim  of  a  tragic  fate.  Much  sin- 
cere mental  toil  is  hidden  in  the  "hypocrisy"  of  the 
Christian  Church.  An  army  of  noble  souls  have  spent 
themselves  in  its  service.  They  thought  themselves 
called  upon  to  force  matter  under  the  scepter  of 
spirit,  to  crush  the  very  postulates  of  God — and  did 
not  see  that  by  so  doing  they  were  breaking  God's 
first  commandment.  Hence  the  "hypocrisy."  It  ap- 
pears in  the  painful  antagonism  between  Christianity 
with  its  asceticism  and  matter  with  its  inevadibility. 
He  who  tries  to  despise  matter — he  is  the  very  one 
who  is  most  susceptible  to  its  charms. 


The  living  God  and  matter:  These  are  the  two 
realities  which  in  man  are  united  in  that  marvelous 
harmony  that  distinguishes  him  from  all  other  living 
beings.    His  spirit  is  comprehended  in  the  living  God, 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  1 63 

and  is  great  only  so  long  as  it  dwells  in  God.  As  soon 
as  it  isolates  itself  from  God  and  endeavors  to  estab- 
lish a  false  independence,  it  falls  into  the  errors  of 
fantasy  and  the  slavery  of  mere  creations  of  the  brain. 
In  God's  life  he  lives  and  works  and  performs  his 
duty — his  duty  to  matter.  "Subdue  the  earth  and 
fill  it".  Such  is  the  first  command  of  God  to  men,  and 
with  its  accomplishment  their  life  is  filled.  When  men 
set  up  other  and  unrelated  tasks  for  themselves,  they 
fall  into  error,  madness  and  death.  This  is  the  reason 
why  men  have  never  been  so  joyous  in  hope  and  in  crea- 
tive work  as  to-day,  in  this  epoch  of  technical  inven- 
tions, in  spite  of  the  shadows  which  persist.  "Mate- 
rialism" (let  weak  souls  shudder!)  is  the  cause,  for 
that  is  the  way  out  of  the  bogs  of  "spirituality"  to 
firm  ground,  to  our  original  task,  our  health,  our  hap- 
piness, our  salvation. 

When  material  progress  ceases  then  the  welfare  of 
men  is  at  a  standstill.  It  was  not  the  Greeks  who 
opened  the  world  to  civilization ;  it  was  the  Romans — 
the  people  who  broke  the  path  for  material  improve- 
ment. Not  Catholicism,  but  Protestantism  brought  in 
the  new  era,  because  it  knew  how  to  win  hearts  for 
the  joy  of  the  hearth,  the  sanctity  of  work,  of  trade, 
as  well  as  for  pious  dogmas.  And  to-day  it  is  not  the 
Church  with  all  its  products  of  the  "spirit,"  not  the 
State,  not  any  of  the  old  institutions  that  are  further- 
ing the  progress  of  man,  but  the  Social  Democracy 
alone,  because  it  alone  understands  that  material  con- 
ditions are  the  true  field  of  human  activity.  It  again 
understands  the  full  import  of  that  original  command 
of  God:    "Subdue  the  earth  and  fill  it."     Its  thinking 


164  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

and  its  doing  are  real.     Therefore,  it  is  strong.     The 
reality  of  the  living  God  stands  behind  it. 

8. 

There  is  a  great  truth  in  the  contention  of  the  Social 
Democracy  that  the  material  conditions  of  every  age 
mirror  themselves  in  the  thoughts  and  ideas  of  men, 
and  that  these  ideas  are  consequently  nothing  else 
than  the  measure  of  the  elevation  or  depression  of 
material  conditions.  The  Social  Democracy  has  no 
doubt  brought  this  truth  into  discredit  by  too  great 
an  insistence  on  its  absoluteness.  It  is  folly,  of  course, 
to  maintain  that  all  law,  morality,  philosophy,  religion 
are  simply  products  of  economic  conditions.  One  of 
the  great  faults  of  the  Social  Democracy  is  that  it  for- 
gets that  man  himself  is  among  the  "realities"  of  the 
world ;  that  he  is  not  the  mere  sum  of  nourishment, 
air,  housing  and  clothing  to  which  the  materialism  of 
a  Buechner  or  a  Moleschott  would  reduce  him;  that 
behind  his  ideas  there  is  an  independent  force  which 
can  be  influenced  by  these  things,  but  is  not  created 
by  them. 

The  truth  that  in  every  epoch  economic  conditions 
are  reflected  means  simply  that  man  is  in  closest 
connection  with  matter  and  cannot  separate  himself 
therefrom.  The  Social  Democracy  is  entirely  right  in 
its  perception  that  human  history  till  now  has  pre- 
sented an  irrational  spectacle,  and  the  further  con- 
clusion is  also  justified  that  this  irrationality  comes 
from  the  false  position  spirit  has  taken  over  against 
matter.  The  "progress"  of  the  human  spirit  is  noth- 
ing else  than  the  repeated  attempt  of  men  to  master 
matter,  the  elements  of  the  immediate  life  that  God 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  165 

has  given  them.  Therefore  all  thought  of  philosophy, 
all  morality  and  religion,  are  in  closest  connection 
with  man's  economic  state.  As  soon  as  that  connec- 
tion is  recognized  and  hallowed  the  false  independence 
of  "spirit''"  with  its  artificial  ideas,  theories,  systems, 
will  cease.  This  conviction  makes  the  strength  of  the 
Social  Democracy. 

9- 

The  Social  Democracy  sees  in  the  creeds  of  the 
Church  useless  theories  which  have  served  only  to 
throw  a  glamor  of  divine  justification  over  an  un- 
righteous state  of  society.  The  faith  of  the  Chris- 
tians, so  they  say,  makes  them  indifferent  to  their  im- 
mediate duties,  blinds  them  to  the  real  meaning  of 
things  and  teaches  them  to  recognize  the  will  of  God 
in  all  the  horrors  of  history.  They  set  faith  alongside 
of  life,  and  dream  of  a  future  bliss  not  connected  with 
this  world,  but  for  the  attainment  of  which  all  pains 
and  sorrows  must  be  endured  here.  "Christianity  is 
the  enemy  of  liberty  and  civilization.  Through  its 
doctrine  of  passive  obedience  to  the  powers  'ordained 
of  God'  and  its  preaching  of  patience  and  submission 
joined  to  the  promise  of  future  bliss,  it  has  tempted 
men  away  from  their  real  purpose  in  life  which  is  to 
develop  themselves  in  every  manner  possible  and  to 
enjoy  the  good  things  of  life  which  they  win  by  their 
toil."  {Christianity  and  Socialism,  Leipzig,  1878,  p. 
10.) 

This  accusation  is  on  the  whole  just.  Christianity 
has  not  been  able  to  bridge  the  chasm  between  the  va- 
rious classes  of  men.  It  has  let  the  frightful  ravages 
of  Mammon  go  unrebuked,  yes,  even  commended  and 


1 66  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

legitimatized  the  evil.  It  has  preached  flight  from 
the  world,  not  conquest  of  the  world.  It  is  unfruitful. 
All  real  progress  has  had  to  be  made  over  the  head 
of  so-called  Christianity.  A  terrible  accusation,  but, 
alas,  it  is  true.  True,  because  our  "Christianity"  speaks 
falsely. 

Christianity  speaks  falsely  when  it  maintains  that 
a  separation  between  earth  and  heaven  has  been  or- 
dained by  God.  It  fails  in  truth  when  it  says  that 
this  earth  is  but  a  vale  of  tears  and  that  all  happiness 
lies  beyond.  It  is  false  when  it  says  that  material  con- 
cerns are  all  of  secondary  interest.  It  is  false  when 
in  its  own  proud  spirit  it  builds  up  an  imaginary  king- 
dom of  heaven  outside  of  all  reality.  The  spirit  of 
God  rules  in  and  through  matter ;  it  "brooded  over  the 
waters"  at  the  creation. 

When  we  wish  to  prove  the  reality  of  charity  we 
point  triumphantly  to  the  stone  facades  of  our  benev- 
olent institutions.  And  we  are  right,  for  goodness 
that  consisted  in  "spirit"  alone  would  not  be  real. 
Virtue  is  not  in  the  thought,  but  in  the  act.  "Inas- 
much as  ye  did  it."  And  the  deed  must  concern  itself 
with  matter.  It  is  as  St.  James  said:  "Beloved  breth- 
ren, what  doth  it  profit  if  a  man  have  faith  but  not 
works?  Can  faith  save  him?  If  a  brother  or  sister 
among  you  were  naked  and  lacked  his  daily  bread, 
and  one  of  you  said,  'Go  in  peace,  be  warmed  and 
fed,'  but  gave  not  unto  him  what  he  needed,  what 
would  it  profit?  So  faith  without  works  is  dead." 
(James  2,  14.) 

There  is  no   faith  that  does  not  exercise  itself  in 
deeds,  no  will  that  does  not  cause  changes   in  the 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCTAL  DEMOCRACY  167 

material  world,  no  morality  that  does  not  express  itself 
in  earthly  relations.  We  are  inevitably  joined  to  mat- 
ter, all  our  senses  are  rilled  with  its  tones  and  colors. 
We  cannot  think  of  life  without  it. 

ic. 

But  the  prevailing  Christianity  says  that  matter 
makes  us  slaves  and  beasts.,  that  only  when  we  declare 
ourselves  the  uncompromising  foes  of  matter  can  we 
taste  peace  and  joy.  Tc  live  with  matter  means — 
death.  And  the  preachers  ask  triumphantly,  "Does 
not  the  New  Testament  teach  us  this?  Above  all  the 
words  of  Jesus  himself?  'My  kingdom  is  not  of  this 
world,'  he  said  to  his  disciples :  'T  go  to  prepare  a  place 
for  you.'  Was  not  his  whole  activity  directed  to- 
ward heaven,  and  does  he  not  speak  of  the  prince  of 
this  world  who  has  naught  to  do  with  him?  Did  he 
not  say,  'What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the 
whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul?'  And  would  you 
hear  what  the  Apostles  say,  we  are  embarrassed  by 
the  wealth  of  texts  which  we  could  cite.  In  almost 
every  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  the  Epis- 
tles to  the  Corimhians,  and  all  the  rest,  you  will  find 
the  same  idea  repeated.  'Seek  what  is  above,  not  what' 
is  on  earth'  (Colossians,  3,  2),  'Our  conversation  is  in 
heaven'  (Phil.  3,  2),  'Flesh  and  blood  cannot  inherit 
the  Kingdom  of  God'  (I  Cor.  15,  50),  etc.,  etc.  (Com- 
pare Eph.  1,  3;  II  Cor.  5,  1  ;  5,  6;  I  Cor.  15,  53;  Rev. 

21,  1-4)." 

II. 

We  do  not  doubt  the  truth  of  any  of  these  texts, 
but  we  fail  to  see  in  them  any  proof  of  the  separation 


l68  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

between  heaven  and  earth,  which  exists  in  Christian 
thought.  Most  assuredly  Jesus  revealed  another 
world,  but  the  heaven  of  which  the  New  Testament 
speaks  is  something  entirely  different  from  the  heaven 
of  which  authorized  Christianity  preaches.  The  form- 
er is  full  of  living  force;  the  latter  is  dead  and 
motionless.  The  former  inspires  men  in  this  world; 
the  latter  waits  till  they  have  died.  The  former  stands 
for  world-conquest;  the  latter  for  world-flight.  The 
former  includes  "the  whole  creation,"  the  latter  ex- 
cludes the  world. 

The  heaven  of  the  New  Testament  is  the  dwelling 
place  of  the  living  God.  But  where  God  dwells  no 
dark  places  can  be,  no  sin  or  evil,  nothing  that  is  op- 
posed to  him.  There  matter,  his  own  creation,  is 
illuminated  with  a  divine  light.  To  believe  in  Jesus 
means  to  claim  the  whole  creation  for  God,  above  all 
to  believe  that  the  world  is  God's.  His  disciples  are 
those  whose  faith  has  overcome  the  world.  They  do 
not  shun  matter ;  they  conquer  it,  and  shape  it  to  the 
praise  of  the  Creator.  How  foolish  the  talk  of  "above" 
and  "below,"  "higher"  and  "lower,"  "present"  and 
."future,"  "earth"  and  "heaven"  for  the  man  who 
stands  in  the  reality  of  God  and  sees  all  other  realities 
in  that  light.  Such  an  one  is  not  speculating  upon  a 
happier  future — the  best  is  already  in  his  hands,  he 
is  working  with  it  cheerfully,  faithfully.  His  con- 
versation is  already  in  heaven,  as  Jesus'  was — in  the 
heaven  of  God's  world. 

This  heaven  is  no  excuse  for  laziness  and  inner  con- 
templation, no  legitimation  of  earthly  pain.  No. 
He  who  has  this  heaven  overcomes    the    world  and 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  169 

creates  new  things ;  he  stops  not  at  hindrances,  fears 
no  difficulties.  He  does  not  cease  laboring  until  all 
the  crooked,  tangled  paths  of  the  earthly  life  are  made 
straight,  until  darkness  is  lightened,  and  tears  dried. 
For  the  world  is  God's.  It  must  be  snatched  from  the 
cruel  claws  of  Mammon.  The  energy  for  this  is  from 
Jesus  Christ.  In  his  power  all  earthly  interests  are 
drawn  into  the  sphere  of  the  eternal  life. 

Why  then  do  Christians  say  that  matter  is  evil? 
Because  they  know  not  God,  and  do  not  believe  in  His 
life-giving  power.  If  they  did  they  would  be  con- 
vinced that  the  earth  must  cease  to  be  the  theater  of 
Mammon's  rule;  they  would  give  up  their  fine-spun 
dogmatics  as  worthless  cobwebs  of  thought.  Dog- 
matics exist  only  where  faith  has  ceased.  They  are  a 
substitute  for  work.  The  whole  history  of  Chris- 
tianity is  one  long,  comfortable  plea  in  favor  of — 
inactivity.  Hence  Christianity  is  most  heartily  re- 
jected by  the  men  who  set  most  by  work — the  Social 
Democrats.  "We  demand  that  the  frightful,  accursed 
state  of  our  present  industrial  society  shall  cease", 
they  cry.  "You  may  keep  your  faith,  your  dogmas, 
your  systems  to  mull  over  as  you  will — only  for  heav- 
en's sake  do  something."  Which  side  has  the  faith, 
Christians  or  Social  Democrats? 

12. 

Christians  may  say  matter  is  a  secondary  thing, 
but  is  it  true?  Why  then  do  you  make  such  a  cry 
when  you  lack  the  material  comforts  of  life?  Why 
then  does  money  rule  the   Christian   Church?     And 


I70  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

why  do  you  see  in  outward  success  or  failure  the 
blessing  or  the  curse  of  God? 

Still  we  will  not  quarrel.  We  will  admit  that 
this  is  all  weakness  and  illogical  behavior,  which  you 
yourselves  confess  and  bemoan.  But  we  must  ask: 
If  material  conditions  are  secondary,  why  then  does 
it  seem  an  impossible  thing  to  you  to  remedy  their 
abuses?  If  it  is  a  little  thing  in  your  eyes  that  the 
poor  are  hungry  while  the  rich  luxuriate  in  idleness, 
why  do  you  not  get  these  little  inconveniences  out  of 
the  way? 

"It  makes  no  difference,"  you  say,  "how  a  man 
is  situated ;  the  only  thing  of  importance  is  his  rela- 
tion to  heaven."  But  does  your  rich  Christian  ever 
change  fortunes  with  the  poor  man,  to  give  the  world 
an  edifying  spectacle  of  brotherly  love?  Or  is  it, 
as  some  bitter  tongues  say,  only  the  poor  for  whom 
those  comforting  words  about  the  insignificance  of 
the  material  conditions  of  life  are  meant?  Does  the 
Church  prove  its  sincerity  by  saying:  "You  rich 
are  of  no  more  worth  than  the  poor  for  your  money's 
sake.  You  distinguished  men  in  high  places,  we  honor 
you  no  more  than  the  lowly,  for  your  position's 
sake.  All  these  things  are  secondary;  we  honor 
character  alone."  Does  the  Church  do  so — or  does  it 
with  one  hand  doff  the  cap  to  Mammon  and  with  the 
other  shut  the  door  in  the  face  of  the  poor? 

If  the  material,  if  possessions  and  money,  were 
secondary  things,  insignificant  things  in  our  Christian 
society,  not  a  week  need  pass  before  all  social  trou- 
bles were  ended.  For  what  could  hinder  us  from 
establishing  our  heaven  here?         Not    unfaith,    im- 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  \J\ 

patience,  weakness;  no!  we  draw  our  power  from 
God !  Not  political  or  social  conditions ;  no !  we  belong 
to  the  Kingdom  of  God !  not  Mammon  surely ;  no !  we 
serve  the  living  God,  and  our  task  is  to  overcome 
Mammon.  No,  nothing  shall  hinder  us,  for  we  "can 
do  all  things  through  him  that  strengtheneth  us, 
through  Christ."  Is  this  true?  Can  we  do  this  "all" 
through  Christ?  Is  not  that  rather  a  pious  phrase? 
Do  not,  on  the  contrary,  the  material  questions  lie 
like  a  nightmare  on  the  conscience  of  Christendom? 
It  is  not  true  that  the  material  is  a  secondary  matter 
for  Christendom ;  the  material  is  a  primary  reality 
which  determines  all  Christian  faith  and  action.  It 
is  not  true  that  Christians  disdain  earthly  conditions. 
The  phrase,  "Money  signifies  nothing"  is  a  subter- 
fuge for  the  pious  rich. 

Christianity  has  fallen  a  shameful  victim  to  Mam- 
mon. Christians  have  lost  the  power  of  God,  and  they 
seek  to  cover  their  service  of  Mammon  with  the  lie 
that  "matter  is  secondary."  They  cry  "spirit, 
spirit!"  and  live  devoted  to  matter.  They  contemn 
matter,  and  lie  prisoners  in  its  fetters. 

And  this  is  sin.  Sin  is  the  false  relation  of  spirit 
and  matter;  spirit  embracing  matter  with  the  whole 
passion  of  its  thirsting  life,  and  at  the  same  time  pre- 
tending to  push  matter  away,  to  be  disgusted  with 
its  dead  weight.  Sin  oscillates  between  the  poles  of 
desire  and  pride.  So  we  may  understand  why  the 
Church  has  never  conquered  sin.     It  has  talked  only 


172  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

of  "spirit;"  it  has  thought  with  spirit  to  oppose  mat- 
ter, but  it  has  thereby  only  given  an  advantage  to  evil. 

Sin  and  Mammon  grew  with  equal  strides  with  the 
false  emancipation  of  the  spirit.  The  ages  in  which 
the  proud,  self-deifying  spirit  has  brought  to  light 
the  works  of  splendid  culture,  have  always  been  ages 
also  of  moral  decline,  of  unbridled  license.  It  is  not 
matter,  but  spirit  that  is  to  blame.  For  spirit  is  the 
lord  of  matter.  But  spirit  becomes  the  slave  of  mat- 
ter when  it  breaks  the  bond  between  the  two. 

The  more  harmonious  a  man  or  a  society  keeps 
the  relation  between  matter  and  spirit,  the  happier 
is  the  life.  The  more  service  that  mind  wrests  from 
matter,  the  more  it  is  spirit  and  poiver. 

The  spirit  of  God  rules  matter.  Only  the  spirit 
of  Christendom  builds  itself  a  kingdom  outside  of 
matter.  Therefore  in  the  spirit  of  God  alone  are  the 
powers  of  a  new  world,  of  changes,  improvements, 
progress  by  which  men  live;  while  in  the  spirit  of 
present  Christianity  is  only  stagnation,  retrogression, 
reaction,  darkness.  If  our  Christianity  is  again  to  have 
life  it  must  address  itself  to  matter. 

14. 

Thou  speakest  with  ecstasy  of  the  salvation  that  is 
thine  in  Jesus,  and  searchest  to  mediate  that  joy  to 
a  fellow-man.  But  if  matter  were  in  thy  power,  if 
thy  salvation  could  only  stream  into  all  the  garrets 
and  cellars  in  which  fellow-men  are  stewing,  that 
would  be  a  proof,  a  salvation  for  which  thou  wouldst 
willingly  give  all  thy  theological  dogmas,  all  thy  pious 
prayer-books.    What  is  eternal  life  if  not  the  stream 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  1 73 

of  health  that  flows  out  from  the  throne  of  God,  that 
pours  its  healing  not  only  over  the  heart  and  mind, 
but  also  over  the  body  and  its  members  ?  What  is  this 
future  kingdom  if  not  a  new  earth  in  which  righteous- 
ness dwells?  What  do  the  words  that  celebrate  thy 
heaven  say?  "I  will  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their 
eyes." 

Even  so,  thou  sayest,  but  all  this  is  to  be  under- 
stood in  a  spiritual,  not  a  material  sense.  Spiritual? 
Does  not  the  Apostle  Paul  tell  us  of  our  celestial 
bodies  that  we  shall  put  on?  Does  not  the  revelation 
of  St.  John  speak  of  the  heavenly  Jerusalem  that 
shall  descend  upon  the  earth?  The  heavenly  body — ■ 
is  that  no  body?  Is  heaven  identical  with  nothing? 
Is  it  God's  purpose  to  destroy  his  creation  or  to  cleanse 
it?  Does  not  the  whole  Bible  say  to  us:  The  end  of 
God's  dealings  with  man  is  bodily  renewal? 

But  thou  repliest :  "The  glorified  body  will  in- 
deed come;  but  now  we  are  in  the  midst  of  dust  and 
evil.  When  this  world  passes  the  better  will  come. 
Then  death  will  be  swallowed  up  by  life,  evil  will 
vanish  and  one  life,  one  light  shall  shine  through  all 
God's  new  creation." 

Again  thou  puttest  everything  off  to  the  future! 
How  canst  thou  talk  so  calmly  of  the  future  and  not 
have  a  desire  to-day  to  give  thyself  to  the  power  of 
this  eternal  life?  Did  Jesus  always  set  to-morrow 
against  to-day?  Was  this  not  rather  the  way  of  that 
unprofitable  servant  who  said :  "My  lord  tarries, 
therefore  I  will  do  what  pleases  me."  Did  not  Jesus 
say:  "Let  your  loins  be  girded  and  your  lights  be 
burning."     Should  we  not  make  this  future  true  and 


174  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

bring  it  in  by  our  daily  faith  and  works?  O,  if  God 
in  some  future  is  going  to  bring  all  creation  into  his 
saving  power,  why  now  hesitate  and  tremble?  Why 
say  to  matter:  "We  know  you  not."  Why  say  to 
"dust,"  which  God  will  redeem  in  the  future:  "We 
despise  you."  Why  say  to  the  earth,  which  God  will 
renew  and  fill  with  his  life :  "We  renounce  you." 
Why  not  this  moment  claim  for  God  the  whole  crea- 
tion? Why,  O  Christendom,  so  weak,  so  lame,  so 
faithless?  O,  forsake  doubt,  destroy  the  cobwebs  of 
theology  and  be  clothed  in  the  spirit  of  God — then 
matter,  which  thou  now  abhorrest  but  which  is  thy 
master,  will  be  in  thy  power. 

This  truth  the  Social  Democracy  has  understood. 
Its  immense  energy  drinks  from  the  sources  of  life. 
It  honors  and  prizes  this  life  that  the  Creator  has 
called  into  being.  Christendom  calls  it  their  "mate- 
rialism." But  what. makes  it  materialism,  if  not  the 
fault  of  thy  ghostly  Christianity?  Thou  hast  given 
them  no  other  word  for  it,  O  Christendom ! 

Yes,  it  is  true,  the  Social  Democrats  deny  spirit. 
They  reject  the  brain-fancies,  the  philosophies,  the 
theologies,  the  abstractions  of  the  spirit — all.  They  see 
in  them  only  the  cowardly  faithlessness  of  a  generation 
that  has  refused  its  task,  God's  task.  And  they  are 
right ! 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  I75 


CHAPTER  VII. 

'the  social  democracy  denies  the  absolute  value 
of  law  and  morality." 


"One  who  attends  the  meetings  of  the  Social 
Democrats  forms  a  peculiar  impression.  The  speak- 
ers storm  against  the  injustice  of  present  conditions, 
and  demand  equality  and  humanity  in  the  name  of 
natural  right,  but  in  unfolding  their  Socialist  plans 
they  leave  all  questions  of  morals  on  one  side." 
(Masaryk:  The  Philosophical  and  Sociological  Foun- 
dations of  Marxism.)  "The  Socialists,"  such  objec- 
tors say,  "speak  of  law  and  order  as  relative  terms, 
and  assume  variations  of  morality  in  the  human  race 
as  historical  and  logical  necessities.  But  once  take 
away  from  morality  its  absolute  transcendent  value 
and  make  it  a  mere  phenomenon  conditioned  on  cer- 
tain historical  stages  of  evolution,  and  there  is  an 
end  of  man's  moral  dignity.  Such  is,  however,  the 
Socialist  thought;  and  we  know  no  greater  danger  to 
our  modern  life." 

It  is  remarkable  how  much  men  have  to  say  (in 
arguments)  about  their  "moral  dignity"  and  how 
little  they  are  willing  to  direct  their  lives  according  to 
it.  Our  modern  society,  in  spite  of  its  religiosity,  is 
honey-combed  with  immorality  to  its  very  core;  it 
permits  the  unclean  to  flourish  and  then  is  indignant 
when  one  begins  to  doubt  the  validity  of  its  morals. 


I76  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

Everything  is  allowed — if  it  is  only  hidden.  Deceit 
is  the  key-note  of  business,  and  it  brings  no  disgrace 
so  long  as  it  keeps  out  of  court.  The  anonymous  is 
the  trump  card  in  the  game  of  our  modern  civilization. 
A  man  may  be  a  swindler,  but  must  not  be  called  so ; 
he  may  visit  the  brothel  and  wallow  in  sensuality, 
but  he  must  never  get  the  name  of  rake.  So  long  as 
he  avoids  the  name  he  is  safe.  So  long  as  he  keeps 
out  of  the  columns  of  the  yellow  paper  he  is  respect- 
able. Our  society  makes  a  parade  of  morality  be- 
cause it  has  none ;  it  grows  furious  over  a  little  scan- 
dal, to  hide  its  own  great  scandal.  Its  morality  is 
the  painted  shield  of  its  immorality.  And  it  is  this 
society  which  pretends  to  be  shocked  at  the  Social 
Democrats'  conception  of  law  and  morality.  We  know 
the  sources  of  this  indignation  and  its  motives. 


The  criminal  sits  in  his  cell,  within  bare  walls, 
his  legs  in  irons.  A  friendly  spider  has  spun  its 
web  around  the  iron  grated  window,  lying  in  wait  for 
the  flies  buzzing  about  the  place. 

How  does  it  happen  that  men  get  into  prison? 

This  man  has  seized  some  of  the  goods  of  his 
richer  neighbor — but  it  it  is  true  that  his  children 
were  crying  in  vain  for  bread  at  home;  if  it  is  true 
that  the  accused  man  was  driven  to  desperation  by 
society;  if  those  pictures  of  social  cruelty  and  hard- 
heartedness  which  the  counsel  of  the  accused  set  be- 
fore the  judges  are  true,  what  should  we  say  then? 
What  is  the  meaning  of  the  law,  "Thou  shalt  not 
steal"?    Does  it  not  ring  in  the  chaos  of  our  modern 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  1 77 

society  like  a  bitter  curse  in  our  ears?  Has  Chris- 
tian society  a  right  to  enforce  that  commandment, 
when  it  treads  underfoot  that  other  commandment: 
"There  shall  be  no  beggar  among  you"?  (Exod. 
15,  17.)  Is  not  our  whole  economic  system  a  huge  rob- 
bery, and  are  not  the  poor  robbed  daily  of  their  holiest 
rights f  And  shall  we  think  we  are  doing  God's  work 
in  writing  the  Ten  Commandments  on  the  prison  walls 
of  poor  rascals? 

But  let  us  not  be  partial.  Let  us  confess  that  there 
are  thieves  too  who  steal  not  out  of  need  but  out  of 
preference,  who  defy  righteousness  and  law,  and  bring 
on  themselves  their  own  merited  punishment.  But 
why? 

3- 

We  are  well  acquainted  with  the  large  mass  of 
lawful  citizens,  men  who  always  pay  their  taxes,  who 
keep  all  the  laws,  who  give  the  police  nothing  to  do, 
who  never  even  jump  from  a  tramcar  in  motion — 
good,  honest  citizens.  But  are  they  always  better 
than  the  criminals? 

There  are  honest  citizens  who  boast  of  knowing 
nothing  of  jails  except  what  they  read  in  the  papers 
when  they  put  on  their  slippers  and  sink  into  a  com- 
fortable arm-chair  after  a  day's  work.  They  do  not 
steal,  but  they  find  no  offense  in  our  economic  world 
which  is  a  vast  scheme  of  swindling.  They  do  not 
murder,  but  they  laugh  and  joke  over  the  poor  man's 
lack  of  cleverness  which  forfeits  his  livelihood.  They 
do  no  one  any  harm — or  any  good  either.  They  live 
like  snakes  in  their  several  dens.     They  die  and  an 


I78  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

inscription  on  their  tombs  lauds  them  to  a  posterity 
like  themselves. 

There  is  truth  in  the  old  proverb:  "There  are 
many  in  jail  who  ought  to  be  in  honor;  and  there  are 
many  in  honor  who  ought  to  be  in  jail." 

Is  the  impatience  with  laws  that  hinder  all  men's 
yearnings  for  freedom,  that  oppose  like  a  wall  of 
granite  all  his  efforts  at  deliverance  from  the  bondage 
of  past  error — is  it  all  wickedness  alone? 

You  answer  perhaps :  "Yes,  but  the  obedience 
which  endures  the  law,  inwardly  freeing  self  from  its 
bonds,  is  greater  than  open  revolt  against  it."  But 
that  is  only  a  phrase  in  your  mouth,  because  you  do 
not  know  what  freedom  means. 

4- 

I  will  tell  you  something  startling.  In  your  own 
heart  the  enemy  is  sleeping,  whose  voice  you  so  dread 
to  hear ;  in  the  depths  of  your  own  being  are  spring- 
ing up  those  flames  of  revolt  which  your  shocked  sense 
of  citizenship  is  trying  to  keep  under.  You  boast 
of  a  moral  standpoint.  Good !  Nothing  is  better  than 
morality.  We  agree  with  you  fully.  We  praise  the 
words  of  a  witness  to  the  glory  of  morality:  "The 
moral  idea  draws  after  it  a  whole  chain  of  creative 
works.  It  is  not  weakness.  It  is  an  instrument  ol 
elevation,  of  freedom.  Its  whole  development  stands 
before  us  as  a  battle  for  spiritual  independence  ana 
inner  self-reliance." 

And  still  when  you  probe  deeply  into  your  own 
moral  consciousness,  do  you  not  often  find  an  ele- 
mental  dissatisfaction   with  mere  morality,   a  protest 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  1 79 

against  it.  You  talk  in  the  finest  words  about  just 
thoughts,  sense  of  duty,  the  dignity  of  man — but  do 
you  feel  that  you  truly  have  that  dignity?  Only  occa- 
sionally in  youi  life  do  you  rise  to  a  momentary  appre- 
ciation and  exemplification  of  it.  What  troubles  you 
in  others  is  just  the  fact  that  you  must  force  your- 
self to  preserve  at  least  the  appearance  of  a  good 
conscience,  or  in  the  last  event  to  yield  a  sour,  vexed 
obedience  to  the  inexorable  demands  of  your  con- 
science. 

Yes,  "demands !"  When  have  you  appropriated 
with  a  joyous  heart  the  luminous  world  of  morality, 
how  often  have  you  felt  at  home  in  that  lofty  domain  ? 
Ever,  again  and  again,  you  have  had  to  force  yourself 
to  conform  to  the  requirements  of  that  world,  and 
you  have  been  obliged  to  recognize  that  an  insurmount- 
able wall  of  separation  arose  between  it  and  you. 

And  that  fact  disturbs  you  to  the  depth  of  your 
soul. 

It  is  obviously  not  the  command  of  the  good,  but 
the  good  itself  that  charms  and  attracts  you.  When 
you  say  the  good  "ought"  to  be  and  must  be,  you 
are  but  showing  an  inherited  confusion  of  thought. 
Not  only  ought  the  good  to  be,  but  it  is ;  it  cannot  oth- 
erwise than  be.  Somewhere  there  is  a  world  where 
it  fulfils  itself  without  restraint,  where  it  is  not  an 
ideal  and  a  law.  It  is  because  you  bear  in  yourself 
this  essential  world  of  good  that  you  speak  of  a  good 
which  ought  to  be.  It  wells  up  within  you  and  would 
overflow  your  whole  being,  but  it  dashes  itself  against 
the  barriers  of  your  present  world  and  is  broken  and 
dissipated  by  the  economic  and  social  conditions.     It 


l8o  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

is  split  into  a  thousand  petty  demands  and  conven- 
tions— and  these  are  what  your  world  and  you  call 
morality. 

Against  this  morality  of  shattered  fragments  your 
better  self  rises  within  you ! 

5- 

Law  and  morality  point  beyond  themselves  to  a 
better  order.  To  try  to  reconcile  them  with  the  pres- 
ent order  means  to  make  them  a  covering  for  wicked- 
ness, and  so  a  curse.  Therefore  the  Social  Democracy 
rises  against  the  current  conception  of  law  and  moral- 
ity. It  accuses  them  of  being  only  a  pretext  with 
which  the  rich  legalize  their  greedy  interests.  It  says : 
Law  and  morality  have  never  been  anything  but  a 
defensive  weapon  for  the  men  in  power.  Law  is  in- 
justice and  morality  is  slavery.  And  one  episode 
after  another  in  world-history  proves  the  truth  of 
this  assertion.  A  frightful  state  of  things — law  and 
morality  in  the  service  of  Mammon !    But  so  it  is. 

This  summer  at  the  railroad  station  at  N the 

train  was  ready  to  start;  the  last  blast  of  the  whistle 
had  sounded,  when  lo — a  running  and  a  shouting,  a 
thrusting  of  heads  from  all  the  windows !  What  was 
it?  An  elegant  gentleman  rushing  up  at  the  last 
moment,  behind  him  a  pack  of  sweating  porters.  The 
gentleman  got  in,  and  demanded  his  handbag  from 
the  nearest  porter.  There  was  a  row  over  the  pay,  a 
violent,  vulgar  haggle  over  a  couple  of  pennies.  And 
meanwhile  the  train  stood  waiting,  the  officials  rooted 
to  their  places  in  obsequious  deference  to  the  elegant 
gentleman.     The   disgusting  scene  came  to   an   end, 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  l8l 

the  train  started  and  the  travelers  said  to  one  an- 
other :  "If  that  had  been  a  poor  man,  eh  ?"  Or  a  dog 
barks  all  night  disturbing  the  whole  neighborhood. 
The  policeman  is  notified;  the  bureau  says:  "Yes, 
yes,  it's  Air.  So-and-So's  dog;  we  can  hardly  make  a 
fuss  about  it." 

Another  example:  I  see  her  still  before  me,  the 
unhappy  woman,  every  feature  showing  her  corrod- 
ing cares,  her  bitter  sense  of  baffled  rights,  her  gnaw- 
ing anguish.  No  one  would  help  her.  All  excused 
themselves ;  they  had  not  time ;  the  case  was  not  worth 

the  trouble.    Oh !  had  she  been  but  rich then 

....    Small  matters,  perhaps,  but    .... 

The  poor  have  no  rights  except  on  paper.  The 
rich  are  always  right — even  when  they  have  no  rights. 
The  law  is  brusque  with  the  poor,  but  before  the 
rich  it  bends  and  shuts  its  eyes.  Only  the  rich  dare 
pay  false  taxes;  if  the  poor  dreams  of  hiding  his  lit- 
tle property — woe  to  him !  Influential  men's  trials 
drag  on  year  after  year  to  end  in  an  accommodation, 
but  the  poor  father  of  a  family  is  clapped  into  prison 
with  little  ceremony. 

In  the  constitution  of  the  State  we  read  about 
"Equal  rights  for  all."  This  fine  statement  is  naught 
but  a  lie!  "Our  so-called  recognition  of  the  equal 
natural  rights  of  all  men  is  for  great  classes  of  our 
population  nothing  but  a  mockery,  and  it  becomes  a 
more  and  more  bitter  deception  for  larger  classes  as 
the  social  oppression  increases,  because  our  institu- 
tions do  not  secure  to  men  the  fruits  of  their  labors." 
(Henry  George,  Social  Problems,  p.  29.) 

We  leave  it  to  our  readers  to  study  this  truth  in 


1 82  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

the  pages' of  history  past  and  current.  Antiquity  went 
down  before  its  baneful  force,  and  it  is  the  secret 
enemy  that  is  eating  out  the  heart  of  our  modern 
state. 

6. 

And  morality.  Consider  how  in  every  age  it  has 
exhausted  its  powers  to  prove  that  the  existing  order 
was  right,  how  it  has  ever  and  always  been  (heroes, 
to  be  sure,  have  never  wholly  failed ! )  the  protector 
of  Mammon.  It  has  branded  in  word  theft  and  adul- 
tery, violence  and  barbarity — but  only  in  general ; 
for  it  has  always  had  preachers  ready  to  defend  the 
robbery  practised  by  those  in  power.  They  have 
been  able  to  palliate  the  vices  of  the  powerful,  and 
violence  has  been  called  heroism  when  it  was  exer- 
cised in  protecting  vested  interests.  Only  the  poor 
have  felt  the  sting  of  morality's  whip.  Our  preachers 
are  friends  of  distinguished  sinners;  they  thunder 
only  against  the  lower  classes. 

There  is  one  morality  for  the  master  and  another 
for  the  servant;  one  for  the  noble,  another  for  the 
commoner ;  one  for  the  civilian,  another  for  the  sol- 
dier. The  morality  of  the  Jesuit  is  not  that  of  the 
Protestant;  the  Liberal's  differs  from  the  Conserva- 
tive's. Each  makes  his  own  morality  according  to  his 
position  and  class.  They  refer  to  a  common  morality 
only  when  their  common  interests  are  menaced. 

We  have  no  morality,  only  moral  standpoints — 
only  moral  pretexts  for  the  protection  of  Mammon. 
Everybody  speaks  of  morals,  meaning  by  it — their 
own  interests.     But  morals  in  league  with  Mammon 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  183 

is  a  He.  And  it  is  this  lie  that  the  Social  Democrats 
combat.  They  deny  the  validity  of  "interested"  mor- 
als— not  from  motives  of  immorality  but  on  the  con- 
trary from  motives  of  true,  independent  morality. 
They  are  moral  in  the  highest  sense  because  they  tear 
the  mask  of  hypocrisy  from  the  pretended  morality  of 
our  society. 

But  whence  this  interior  schism  in  morality  ?  Why 
is  morality  bound  to  the  base  interests  of  Mam- 
mon, while  intrinsically  a  holy,  absolute  power ;  why 
to-day  sold  to  transient,  sordid  interest  and  to-morrow 
stirred  by  the  breath  of  genius  to  the  revelation  of  the 
world  of  perfect  spirits? 

7- 

A  man  must  live.  Life  means  the  development 
of  all  the  powers  of  being  to  their  richest  fulfillment 
in  freedom  and  power.  The  Creator  gave  man  this 
life,  and  put  him  in  a  world  of  spirit  and  matter,  to 
use  the  former  as  the  theater  of  his  freedom,  the  latter 
as  the  theater  of  his  power.  But  men  have  ceased 
to  live  this  life  of  freedom  and  power.  Matter,  which 
they  should  control,  has  got  control  of  them.  There- 
fore men  are  avaricious,  insatiable,  self-centered. 
Men  have  ceased  to  live ;  only  matter  lives  in  them. 

But  withal,  men  wish  to  live,  to  find  themselves 
again.  Throughout  history  they  have  been  returning 
to  themselves  like  the  Prodigal.  And  the  man  coming 
to  himself  is  true  morality. 

So  we  have  the  anomaly — man  at  once  a  slave  and 
an  aspirant,  striving  to  free  himself  from  the  clutches 
of  matter  and  to  realize  himself  in  freedom  and  power. 


184  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

There  is  no  real  morality  in  the  realms  of  Mam- 
mon, for  morality  is  an  attribute  of  free  man,  and 
where  man  really  rules  Mammon  crouches  at  his  feet. 
Men  talk  so  much  of  right  and  morality.  There  is 
only  one  right — man;  only  one  morality — man. 

Within  the  sphere  of  Mammon  it  is  simply  non- 
sense to  talk  of  absolute  principles  of  right  and  mor- 
ality; it  means  confusing  the  question  of  duty  in  an 
insoluble  riddle  and  binding  men  to  an  endless  slav- 
ery to  matter. 

The  Social  Democrats  do  well  when  they  declaim 
against  the  current  ideas  of  right  and  the  traditional 
morality.  They  are  vindicating  the  only  right  there 
really  is — the  right  of  men;  and  the  only  valid  moral- 
ity— the  autonomy  of  the  moral  consciousness,  as  Kant 
called  it. 

8. 

-a 

The  rights  of  men!  What  folly  to  speak  of  rights 
and  not  think  of  men !  What  blindness  to  talk  of  mine 
and  thine,  instead  of  I  and  thou!  What  weakness  to 
demand  obedience  from  men  without  seeking  the 
grounds  of  its  authority,  to  demand  morality  undis- 
turbed by  the  fact  that  it  is  not  possible  in  a  world 
where  material  interests  rule. 

What  shall  we  think  of  a  morality  that  ranges  men 
alongside  of  each  other  as  if  they  were  all  born  in  the 
same  conditions,  equally  strong,  equally  unprincipled, 
equally  unscrupulous  in  their  means?  And  yet  our 
law  proceeds  on  this  assumption,  as  if  men  were  a 
flock  of  sheep  on  the  same  meadow,  to  be  fed  on  the 
same  pabulum.    Can  one  speak  of  "right"  when  the  ut- 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  185 

most  brutality  is  protected  by  the  state  and  enjoys  the 
greatest  triumphs  and  when  the  most  honorable  dis- 
position finds  no  opportunity  for  self-expression?  Is 
that  "right"  which  relies  solely  on  human  egoism, 
which  proclaims  egoism  as  a  principle  of  social  life 
and  sacrifices  to  it  even  the  means  of  existence  to 
which  every  man  has  a  divine  right :  access  to  the  soil, 
and  the  product  of  labor?  Where  was  the  "right"  of 
the  Roman  patrician,  or  of  the  medieval  noble;  and 
where  is  the  "right"  of  the  modern  proprietor?  Ask 
history  how  all  these  "rights"  originated,  and  you  will 
get  one  answer — through  robbery !  Robbery  is  at  the 
basis  of  our  entire  jurisprudence,  of  our  landed  prop- 
erty, of  our  financial  and  industrial  system.  The  soil 
itself,  the  basis  of  everything,  belongs  to  certain  privi- 
leged persons ;  the  rest  are  without  a  country,  they 
have  no  footing  on  the  land  except  because  the  privi- 
leged persons  need  them.  And  you  still  speak  of 
Rights ! 

With  what  right  may  a  man  drive  another  man 
from  the  soil  where  he  is  and  claim  it  for  himself? 
Because  he  has  more  money  ?  Can  he  buy  off  the  nat- 
ural needs  of  men  by  money?  By  what  right  is  gold 
all-powerful  in  the  state? 

You  speak  of  ideas  of  justice,  principles  of  right 
and  the  like.  But  these  are  all  phrases  with  which 
you  extenuate  the  brutality  of  Mammon.  Mammon 
dictates  your  books  of  law. 

There  is  no  reason,  no  law,  no  real  righteousness 
on  earth.  There  is  only  one  power  that  rules,  com- 
prising the  ideal  and  the  mundane  in  its  sway.  That 
power  is  money.    He  who  has  money,  is  right ;  he  who 


l86  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

has  none,  is  wrong.    That  is  the  justice  of  Mammon, 
and  you  know  no  other. 

9- 

You  speak  of  "rights"  in  the  plural,  but  the  one 
great  fundamental  right  of  men,  the  right  to  live,  you 
ignore.  You  say:  if  a  man  buys  a  thing  with  money, 
he  has  a  right  to  that  thing,  whatever  it  may  be.  I 
will  answer  you  in  the  words  of  the  great  American, 
Henry  George :  "The  equal,  natural  and  inalienable 
right  to  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  does 
it  not  involve  the  right  of  each  to  the  free  use  of  his 
powers  in  making  a  living  for  himself  and  his  family, 
limited  only  by  the  equal  right  of  all  others?  Does  it 
not  require  that  each  shall  be  free  to  make,  to  save  and 
to  enjoy  what  wealth  he  may,  without  interference 
with  the  equal  rights  of  others ;  that  no  one  shall  be 
compelled  to  give  forced  labor  to  another,  or  to  yield 
up  his  earnings  to  another ;  that  no  one  shall  be  per- 
mitted to  extort  from  another  labor  or  earnings?  All 
this  goes  without  the  saying."  (Social  Problems, 
Chap.  X.) 

But  if  this  goes  without  saying,  it  likewise  goes 
without  saying  that  it  ought  not  to  be  possible  to  ac- 
quire with  money  the  possessions  which  represent  for 
men  the  indispensable  means  of  production  and  exist- 
ence. 

Go  through  the  alleys  of  the  poor  quarters  of  our 
cities ;  mount  the  dark  and  rickety  staircases,  enter 
the  rooms — mere  pens,  often — of  our  poorest  work- 
ers; observe  their  miserable  existence;  bend  for  a  mo- 
ment over  their  sick  beds,  and  say  if  there  is  not  a 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  187 

fundamental  iniquity  in  our  civilization?  Are  these 
poor  solely  culpable  for  their  situation — have  not  the 
rest  of  us  helped  to  put  them  there?  You  stammer, 
"But  all  have  equal  rights ;"  but  do  you  believe  it  ? 
Surely  you  do  not.  You  seek  in  such  phrases  help 
against  your  troubled  conscience — a  shield  from  the 
conviction  of  an  enormous  injustice  in  which  you  have 
a  part. 

How  can  our  Society  pose  as  a  defender  of  right 
-  our  Society  which,  through  cancellation  of  the  divine 
rights  of  men,  has  brought  about  a  state  of  things 
which  provokes  crime — our  Society  which  recognizes 
only  Mammon-right,  not  human-right — our  Church 
which  surrounds  this  Mammon-right  with  the  luster 
of  the  divine  word? 

10. 

But  you  fall  on  me  with  the  word :  The  Bible  says, 
"The  poor  ye  have  always  with  you." 

It  is  terrible  that  you  should  call  to  mind  the  di- 
vine word  only  when  it  is  to  legitimize  your  Mammon. 
But  even  so,  is  it  conceivable  that  the  Bible  means 
those  words  in  the  sense  in  which  you  quote  them? 
That  God  who  has  endowed  the  earth  so  richly,  who 
has  given  it  to  the  children  of  men,  has  He  willed  that 
men  should  live  in  daily  danger  of  starvation,  only  es- 
caping it  through  serfdom  to  the  rich?  That  God 
who  has  given  us  the  sense  of  righteousness  and  broth- 
erhood ;  shall  He  recognize  the  fulfillment  of  His  pur- 
pose in  the  triumphant  injustice  and  cruelty  of  Mam- 
mon? 

"Rich  and  poor  meet  together;"  this,  you  say,  is  a 


l88  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

law  of  nature.  But  what  kind  of  poor?  Those  made 
poor  by  the  oppression  and  injustice  of  the  rich?  Does 
the  same  God  at  once  forbid  injustice  and  sanction  its 
fruits?  What  man,  with  even  half  wits,  would  so 
act?  The  poverty  of  our  day,  the  misery  of  the 
masses  now,  comes  from  acting-  contrary  to  the  pur- 
pose of  the  true  God.  For  what  is  it  that  you  under- 
stand by  "God"?  I  will  tell  you.  Exactly  what  the 
Bible  understands  by  "Mammon."  This  "God"  of 
yours,  who  absolves  all  the  cruelties  of  an  unscrupu- 
lous egoism  with  the  word — there  will  always  be  rich 
and  poor — this  God  is  Mammon.  What  frightful 
irony!  You  call  on  God's  word,  and  confound  it  with 
what  Mammon  whispers  to  you  between  the  lines. 
There  may  be  a  poverty  that  is  consistent  with  God's 
will,  but  it  is  not  ours.  Our  poverty  is  a  shame  and 
a  disgrace — a  mockery  of  God's  law. 

First  do  away  with  the  injustice  you  work  on  yonr 
fellowmen,  your  robbing  them  of  their  natural  means 
of  living:  think  again  of  the  original  duty  of  man  to 
man;  follow  the  clear  lines  of  right,  the  laws  of  life, 
that  give  all  a  claim  to  the  earth  and  to  the  fruits  of 
their  labor,  and  then  speak  of  the  inexorable  war  of 
competition,  of  the  varying  capacities  of  men,  of  the 
laziness  that  hinders  men  from  rising.  Then  cite  the 
scripture:  "The  poor  ye  have  always  with  you,"  and 
you  will  be  able  to  understand  it.  Until  then  you  have 
no  right  to  the  words. 

ii. 

No,  it  must  be  clear  to  all  that  mankind  lies  under 
the  burden  of  a  frightful  wrong,  that  our  economic 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  1 89 

system  is  in  complete  disobedience  to  God's  will.  It 
is  the  Social  Democrats  who  see  this  truth  and  make  it 
clear.  They  fight  against  the  laws  for  the  one  Law, 
against  the  rule  of  Mammon  for  the  rule  of  human- 
ity. Instead  of  "rights"  (which  generally  mean  .vested 
iniquities)  they  demand  Right.  Their  contest  against 
the  powers  of  State  and  Society  is  the  most  moral  phe- 
nomenon of  our  time.     Their  reproach  is  their  glory. 

It  is  said  that  the  Social  Democrats  propose  to  re- 
duce everything  to  a  dead  level ;  equal  livelihood,  equal 
rights,  equal  conditions  and  positions,  equal  duties — 
the  dull  grey  equality  in  which  all  real  life  perishes.  A 
cheap  and  base  criticism,  the  uglier  because  it  tries  to 
saddle  the  Social  Democracy  with  the  very  sin  the  lat- 
ter seeks  to  eradicate.  It  is  not  true  that  the  Social 
Democracy  demands  equal  position  and  outward  con- 
dition for  all  men.  What  it  demands  is  the  equal 
chance  for  the  satisfaction  of  our  life-needs — and  this 
is  a  demand  which  springs  from  the  natural  rights  of 
human  beings,  and  which  indeed  is  recognized  "in  ab- 
straclo"  by  our  civil  codes.  For  middle-class  legisla- 
tion has  set  up  the  equality  of  men  as  an  abstraction, 
upon  the  ground  of  which  an  inhuman  doctrinairism 
leaves  the  individual  to  his  fate. 

The  current  claim  that  we  now  have  equality  of 
opportunity  is  a  lie  of  Mammon's  fashioning  to  still 
the  oublic  conscience.  Whoever  studies  economics 
knows  well  that  the  "freedom"  we  hear  so  much  about 
has  no  reality.  Are  the  laborers  who  are  bound  day 
in,  day  out,  to  their  place  at  the  machine,  really  free, 
really  masters  of  their  lives?  Wrould  they  sacrifice 
another  moment  of  their  precious  lives  to  the  Moloch 


190  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

of  steel  if  they  knew  where  else  to  turn  ?  But  society- 
bothers  little  with  this  actual  state  of  affairs ;  it  reads 
in  its  paper  constitutions  that  all  men  are  free  and 
equal  before  the  law,  and  that  is  enough.  For  such  a 
society  to  accuse  the  Social  Democrats  of  wishing  to 
fix  men  in  a  dull  grey  uniformity  of  life  is  either  blind- 
ness or  hypocrisy. 

It  is  not  true  that  community  of  production  will 
enslave  the  individual  and  rob  him  of  dignity.  On 
the  contrary,  only  when  an  inviolable  order  of  society 
vouches  for  social  peace  will  the  individual  traits  of 
men  and  women  be  free  to  develop  in  their  complete- 
ness, guaranteed  by  the  uniting  bond  of  economic  in- 
ter-dependence. The  Creator  has  made  man  for  com- 
mon work,  not  for  an  object  of  doctrinaires'  theoriz- 
ing; it  is  the  privileged  classes,  anxious  for  their  own 
position,  who  see  in  the  common  production  and  shar- 
ing of  the  means  of  existence  the  end  of  all  things ! 

God's  laws  are  pure  harmony  and  joy.  'The  laws 
of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether.  More 
to  be  desired  are  they  than  gold,  yea,  than  much  fine 
gold ;  sweeter  also  than  honey  and  the  honeycomb,  and 
in  keeping  of  them  there  is  great  reward." 

And  our  laws?  Have  they  been  able  to  prevent 
wickedness,  fraud,  evil  of  all  sorts?  Have  they  not 
often  made  alliance  with  these  dark  powers  ?  Do  they 
not  as  often  serve  the  inhuman  practices  of  avarice 
as  the  quiet  and  honorable  conduct  of  uprightness? 
Who  is  oftenest  called  to  account  by  them,  the  poor 
or  the  rich,  the  petty  rogue  or  the  great  one?  Are 
they  not  evaded,  laughed  at,  trampled  under  foot  by 
the  favorites  of  Mammon  ?    Why  do  men  fear  the  law 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  I9I 

only,  and  not  love  it?  Our  justice  is  injustice;  our 
laws  are  not  laws.  They  serve  Mammon  and  not  man. 
Justice  will  for  the  first  time  be  administered  when  Jus- 
tice itself  and  Law  itself — that  is  to  say,  Man  himself 
— ascends  the  throne.  But  who  nurtures  such  a  hope  ? 
The  Social  Democrats. 

12. 

If  the  aspect  of  our  present  legal  institutions  is 
discouraging  and  painful,  our  views  of  morality  per 
se  ought  at  least  to  be  elevating.  Here,  where  there 
is  no  compulsion,  where  we  are  not  forced  to  hamper 
our  ideas  of  right  relations  with  each  other  by  "con- 
siderations" dictated  by  Mammon,  where  we  may  give 
ourselves  in  thought  freely  and  fully  to  our  neighbor, 
we  must  (so  one  would  think)  develop  in  ourselves  and 
recognize  in  others  the  trait  which  our  business  life  so 
befogs — our  human  dignity. 

We  cannot  deny  that  a  mighty  current  is  setting 
toward  the  recognition  of  this  postulate  in  our  modern 
society.  More  than  ever  before  noble  spirits  are  busy- 
ing themselves  with  the  questions  of  morality.  We 
are  beginning  to  understand  that  morality  has  its  own 
independent  sphere  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  Mam- 
mon. Not  in  vain  have  Kant  and  his  great  pupil 
Fichte  followed  out  the  consequences  of  the  Christian 
doctrine  in  their  demand  that  men  shall  be  rulers  of 
the  kingdom  of  things  by  virtue  of  the  autonomous 
moral  force  within  their  breasts.  To  be  sure  the  waves 
of  the  faithless,  cheerless  fatalism,  taught  by  the 
''realists"  of  our  modern  science,  are  still  breaking 
against  the  strand  of  our  thought — but  they  are  feebler 


192  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

than  a  generation  ago.  We  demand  of  ourselves  with 
ever  increasing  insistency :  Create  thine  own  world ! 
Our  wills  are  steeling  themselves,  our  faith  lifts  its 
head.  We  fight  fatalism  with  its  own  weapons  when 
we  confidently  assert  that  there  is  also  a  necessity 
compelling  us  to  the  good,  to  freedom,  to  moral  pow- 
er. And  if  we  inquire  closely  into  the  cause  of  this 
hopeful  change  of  disposition,  we  find  it  to  be  above 
all  else  a  reflex  of  the  tremendous  energy  of  the  So- 
cial Democracy — which  is  accused  of  purposing  to  de- 
stroy morality. 

We  all  live  to-day  by  the  fresh  draught  of  hope  and 
joy  which  has  blown  through  our  stagnant  civilization, 
stimulating  us  to  the  creation  of  new  ideals,  opening  a 
future  before  us — though  some  traits  of  that  future 
may  be  by  some  fancifully  presented.  If  we  contrast 
the  programs  of  the  old  parties  with  what  the  Social 
Democrats  have  set  up  as  their  aim,  we  shall  recognize 
that  here  if  anywhere  truth  has  taken  hold  and  that  ail 
the  ridicule  of  enemies  and  all  minor  weaknesses  of 
its  own  cannot  destroy  a  movement  which  deals  ear- 
nestly with  the  ideals  of  humanity.  Why  is  it  then 
that  the  Social  Democracy  is  charged  with  being  op- 
posed to  morality?  It  is  because  its  morality  is  an 
effective  morality,  and  society's  morality  is  not. 

13- 

Too  much  speculative  detail  in  the  standard  moral 
publications  of  to-day,  too  much  calculation,  too  much 
anxiety,  too  much  weakness!  For  what  we  all  need 
is  clear  and  simple,  as  it  stands  on  the  page  of  the 
New  Testament:  "Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law." 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  1 93 

Too  much  timidity,  no  must,  no  unconditioned,  no  fer- 
vor! 

No  must — and  so  in  practice  the  slavery  to  Mam- 
mon goes  on.  As  long  as  man  has  not  comprehended 
his  own  boundless  self,  his  morality  must  be  held  cap- 
tive by  a  stronger  power — matter.  Only  when  man 
directs  his  own  life  does  he  conquer  matter.  Moral- 
ity and  life  must  unite  in  one  power.  As  long  as  we 
think  of  morality  as  of  a  distant  power  ruling  over 
us,  we  perpetuate  the  discord  between  life  and  morals 
and  pave  the  way  for  the  victory  of  matter  over  spirit. 
So  long  as  we  say:  "Thou  shalt !"  and  do  not  add: 
"Because  thou  art,"  our  life  remains  an  incomprehen- 
sible chaos,  in  whose  billows  of  matter  with  their  coun- 
ter currents  of  good  so  many  souls  have  sunk  hope- 
lesslv.  Behold  the  riddle  of  our  life :  on  the  one  hand 
the  irresistible  voice  of  morality,  on  the  other  hand  the 
victory  of  the  senses.  But  a  riddle  only  so  long  as 
we  do  not  know  that  we  ourselves  are  identical  with 
morality,  that  we  have  our  very  life  in  morality  and 
that  bare  moral  rules  are  only  the  expression  of  our 
present  incompleteness. 

To  perpetuate  this  incompleteness,  to  say  that  we 
cannot  grow  beyond  our  present  selves,  to  preserve  the 
chasm  between  morality  and  man,  to  wish  to  prove 
that  the  good  is  a  mere  ideal,  all  this  means  to  defraud 
men  of  their  highest  good  and  to  sacrifice  on  the  altar 
of  Mammon  their  deepest  impulses  and  their  noblest 
aspirations. 

14- 

Morals  and  Mammon,  what  a  frightful  alliance! 
And  still  that  is  the  seal  of  our  society  to-day. 


194  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

Here  is  a  mother  who  says  to  her  departing  son: 
"Be  upright  and  honest;  God  helps  the  good.  The 
honest  always  accomplish  their  aim.  You  will  suc- 
ceed if  you  are  pious  and  just."  That  is  to  say,  moral- 
ity— for  the  sake  of  earthly  success.  Yet  there  are 
other  mothers  who  say:  "My  son,  if  you  are  ridiculed 
for  your  principles,  never  mind;  if  you  have  to  suffer 
for  your  character's  sake,  do  not  repent  of  your  choice 
of  the  good."  But  even  the  heart  of  this  mother  is 
torn  to  think  that  harm  may  befall  her  child.  Fathers 
and  mothers  would  prefer  to  have  their  good  children 
rewarded  with  "blessing"  (i.  e.,  of  earthly  goods). 

We  hear  the  preaching  so  often :  "Love  thy  neigh- 
bor as  thyself" — and  still  we  see  that  the  very  persons 
who  use  these  words  with  so  much  confidence  are  seek- 
ing their  own  advantage  in  money  or  honors  wherever 
they  go.  We  are  bidden  to  esteem  all  men  with 
equal  honor  according  to  their  desert;  but  every- 
where we  see  subserviency  to  the  rich  and  condescen- 
sion to  the  poor.  Despite  all  the  beautiful  sermons  and 
books  written  on  the  true  worth  of  men,  that  which 
we  find  to  be  really  honored  among  men  is — gold  !  We 
may  intend  to  love  all  men,  but  we  do  love  only  the 
rich. 

We  do  not  ignore  the  fact  that  there  are  on  all 
sides,  here  and  there,  disinterested  men  filled  with 
the  best  intentions ;  but  we  must  add  that  they  all  lack 
one  thing — a  strong  and  effective  will.  With  all  their 
kindly  wishes  and  noble  views,  they  bow  before  Mam- 
mon the  inexorable.  Their  motto  is,  "as  much  as  pos- 
sible ;"  their  ever-present  idea,  "nothing  dangerous ;" 
their  faith,  "things  will  never  be  much  better."    They 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  195 

speak  of  good,  but  they  do  not  know  its  power ;  they 
even  become  enthusiastic  over  it,  but  without  that 
flame  which  illuminates  and  kindles.  They  render  it 
every  homage,  only  not  in  the  realm  of  reality. 

In  such  circles  it  is  freely  admitted  that  the  condi- 
tions which  produce  poverty  are  undeserved  and  scan- 
dalous. Such  men  even  condemn  our  system  of  eco- 
nomics, they  admit  that  our  exploitation  of  the  worker 
is  wicked.  They  say  it  ought  to  be  different ;  the  poor 
ought  not  to  have  to  live  by  the  bare  grace  of  the 
rich,  they  ought  to  have  some  independence;  they 
ought  to,  we  ought  to,  the  Church  ought  to,  society 
ought  to  do  this  and  that.  Yes,  yes,  everybody  ought 
to. 

15. 

Such  an  "ought  to !"  It  is  morality  in  Mammon's 
chains.  We  talk  and  talk  about  it  because  we  cannot 
act.  We  cover  our  moral  nakedness  with  these  imper- 
atives. 

What  kind  of  an  "ought"  is  it  that  does  not  dis- 
charge itself  in  a  "must"?  What  kind  of  morality  is 
that  which  remains  a  bare  wish?  Why  do  you  say:  "It 
should  be — but"?  Does  the  good  know  any  "but," 
any  "if,"  any  cowardly  calculating  considerations? 
Has  not  the  unconditioned,  irresistible  good  loosed 
every  mighty  stream  of  reform,  girded  the  sword  on 
every  champion  of  righteousness  and  kindled  the 
tongue  of  every  prophet  ?  The  good  must  be,  not  sim- 
ply ought  to  be.  It  alone  is  real.  The  world  of  Mam- 
mon is  false.  The  good  must  be,  because  it  alone  is 
life. 


I96  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

This  must  glows  in  the  souls  of  the  Social  Demo- 
crats. Hence  society  accuses  them  of  overthrowing 
morality.  Yes,  the  philistine  morality  of  Mammon's 
world  they  do  assail — this  weak,  mongrel  morality  that 
talks  of  shoulds  and  oughts,  but  knows  no  must,  that 
ever  replies  when  the  call  comes  to  act,  "we  cannot 
change  anything !" 

Yes,  the  Social  Democrats  are  enemies  of  this  mo- 
rality. They  cannot  calmly  prate  about  meting  to  each 
his  due,  harming  none  and  respecting  all,  because  one 
great  question  fills  their  whole  souls;  the  question, 
namely,  whether  the  conditions  amidst  which  our 
Christian  charity  is  so  helplessly  drifting  must  not 
yield  to  better  and  juster  conditions;  the  question 
which  makes  all  our  little  considerations  fade  before 
the  one  great  consideration — regard  for  mankind. 

The  endeavor  of  the  Social  Democracy  is  not  sim- 
ply to  reach  certain  economic  ideals,  but  rather  to  reach 
human  ideals — to  deliver  man  out  of  the  traditional 
fetters  of  rusty  prejudice  and  to  enable  him  to  take 
his  destiny  into  his  own  hands.  In  the  heat  of  com- 
bat this  ideal  of  the  Social  Democracy  is  often  over- 
looked. But  only  read  the  glowing  pages  of  a  Bebel 
and  you  will  understand  the  power  behind  the  Social 
Democracy — not  the  advantage  of  one  class  over  an- 
other, not  stolid  hatred  against  one's  more  privileged 
fellow-men,  not  the  prospect  of  a  lazy  existence,  but 
the  realization  of  what  we  all  have  in  us  beneath  the 
crust  of  an  inherited  past — our  humanity.  To-day  we 
are  not  men  in  the  sense  the  Creator  willed  when  lie 
made  man.  As  long  as  we  are  simply  striving,  each 
for  himself,  for  the  golden  dross  that  matter  promises, 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  1 97 

so  long-  we  miss  our  true  end,  and  are  not  men,  but 
beasts.  "Only  when  with  full  consciousness  of  our 
powers  we  make  our  own  history  are  we  free."  Such 
are  the  words  of  a  Social  Democrat,  and  such  words 
the  current  Christianity  can  brand  as  utterances  of  im- 
morality ! 

Which  does  God's  will  herein,  Christian  or  Social 
Democrat?  Should  we  not  give  all  we  have  to  escape 
the  moral  morass  of  Mammon's  service ;  should  we  not 
greet  with  joy  the  heroes  who  have  the  courage  to  op- 
pose the  slavery  of  a  thousand  years  in  which  the 
Christian  Church  has  languished,  to  proclaim  the  Gos- 
pel free  from  all  clauses  and  reservations  and  to  con- 
fess a  faith  which  we  Christians  have  long  with  timid 
and  anxious  souls  sacrificed  to  the  idols  of  so-called 
progress,  so-called  culture,  so-called  science? 

We  repeat  again — the  Christians  have  lost  their 
hold  on  the  living  God ! 

16. 

Christianity  proclaims  all  men  brothers — no  slave, 
no  free,  no  Greek,  no  Jew ;  and  shall  that  word  have 
no  effect  on  our  social  life?  How  can  it  be  possible — 
inwardly  one,  outwardly  divided?  Must  not  the  in- 
ward life  always  manifest  itself  in  the  outward  act? 
Did  not  the  early  Christians  prove  their  faith  by  their 
community  of  goods? 

But  you  say :  All  that  may  be  granted  and  still  we 
may  reply  no!  to  the  question  whether  it  is  the  Social 
Democracy  that  has  the  call  and  the  power  to  supplant 
the  kingdom  of  Mammon  by  the  kingdom  of  person- 
ality.   So  speaks  the  Church. 


I98  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

But  why  then,  if  the  Church  doubts  the  power  of 
the  Social  Democracy,  does  it  not  itself  set  to  work? 
It  recognizes  the  validity  of  the  Social  Democratic  pos- 
tulate :  deliverance  of  men  from  the  tyranny  of  things ; 
only  it  doubts  the  power  of  the  Social  Democracy.  It 
thinks  that  for  such  a  work  the  Christian  faith  is  ab- 
solutely necessary.  Very  well,  why  not  set  to  zvork, 
you  that  have  the  Gospel?  Why  only  words,  words — 
only  negative  criticism  of  the  "powerless"  Social  Dem- 
ocracy? Why  talk  seriously  of  the  Gospel  and  its 
power  only  when  you  wish  to  throw  suspicion  on  your 
opponents,  never  when  it  is  a  question  of  yourselves 
entering  the  lists  to  fight  against  Mammon  ? 

Is  your  Gospel  the  Gospel  of  the  living  God? 

17. 

But  now  comes  the  final,  the  clinching  objection 
in  the  cry  that  the  Social  Democrats  would  break  up 
the  family.  It  is  said  that  they  contemn  the  marriage 
tie  and  preach  free  love.  This  charge  is  wholly  un- 
true. Bebel's  book,  "Woman  and  Socialism,"  on  which 
the  charge  is  based,  is  in  no  sense  a  deliverance  of  the 
party — it  is  merely  the  opinion  of  one  man  who  hap- 
pens to  be  high  in  the  party.  To  make  an  entire 
party  responsible  for  what  one  of  its  members  pub- 
lishes to  the  world  is  an  old  error.  The  Social  De- 
mocracy has  never  formulated  a  doctrine  of  marriage 
or  the  family.  As  little  justified  as  the  attempt  to  foist 
a  dogma  of  atheism  on  the  party  (which  distinctly  says 
in  its  official  utterance,  "religion  is  a  private  matter") 
is  this  attempt  to  make  the  party  stand  for  an  extreme 
view  of  one  of  its  leaders.     Think  what  embarrass- 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  199 

ment  Christianity  would  be  in  if  it  were  responsible 
for  the  private  views  of  many  of  its  most  pious  saints ! 

The  Social  Democrats,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  lead 
lives  irreproachable,  according  to  the  moral  standards 
of  our  day.  The  principles  of  the  party  demand  of 
every  member  self-conquest  and  self-sacrifice.  The 
Social  Democracy  stands  in  the  front  rank  in  the  war- 
fare against  drunkenness  and  against  prostitution.  This 
party  is,  in  truth,  one  of  the  strongest  agencies  for 
morality.    And  how  could  it  be  otherwise? 

How  could  a  movement  which  has  aims  so  lofty  be 
other  than  a  purifying  force?  A  movement  which  puts 
man  in  his  right  place  as  supreme  over  things  cannot 
but  make  for  morality,  even  in  the  ordinary  sense. 
The  Social  Democracy  does  indeed  say:  "Justice  and 
morality  are  subject  to  mutability;"  but  it  says  this  in 
the  light  of  a  future  in  which  all  laws  and  prescrip- 
tions, both  inner  and  outer,  are  swallowed  up  in  life. 
Is  this  hope  a  true  one,  or  is  it  the  fever  dream  of  er- 
ror?   Let  the  Christian  consult  his  Bible. 

18. 

"And  there  shall  come  forth  a  shoot  out  of  the 
stock  of  Jesse,  and  a  branch  out  of  his  roots  shall  bear 
fruit:  and  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  shall  rest  upon  him, 
the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  understanding,  the  spirit  of 
counsel  and  might,  the  spirit  of  knowledge  and  of  the 
fear  of  the  Lord ;  and  his  delight  shall  be  in  the  fear  of 
the  Lord :  and  he  shall  not  judge  after  the  sight  of  his 
eyes,  neither  reprove  after  the  hearing  of  his  ears: 
but  with  righteousness  shall  he  judge  the  poor,  and 
reprove  with  equity  for  the  meek  of  the  earth :  and  he 


200  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

shall  smite  the  earth  with  the  rod  of  his  mouth,  and 
with  the  breath  of  his  lips  shall  he  slay  the  wicked. 
And  righteousness  shall  be  the  girdle  of  his  loins,  and 
faithfulness  the  girdle  of  his  reins.  And  the  wolf 
shall  dwell  with  the  lamb,  and  the  leopard  shall  lie 
down  with  the  kid;  and  the  calf  and  the  young  lion 
and  the  fatling  together;  and  a  little  child  shall  lead 
them.  They  shall  not  hurt  nor  destroy  in  all  my  holy 
mountain :  for  the  earth  shall  be  full  of  the  knowledge 
of  the  Lord,  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea."  (Isaiah 
ii,  1-9.) 

"And  I  will  give  them  one  heart  and  one  way,  that 
they  may  fear  me  forever;  for  the  good  of  them,  and 
of  their  children  after  them :  and  I  will  make  an  ever- 
lasting covenant  with  them,  that  I  will  not  turn  away 
from  them,  to  do  them  good;  and  I  will  put  my  fear 
in  their  hearts,  that  they  shall  not  depart  from  me." 
(Jeremiah  32,  39-40.) 

"A  new  heart  also  will  I  give  you,  and  a  new  spirit 
will  I  put  within  you :  and  I  will  take  away  the  stony 
heart  out  of  your  flesh,  and  I  will  give  you  an  heart  of 
flesh.  And  I  will  put  my  spirit  within  you,  and  cause 
you  to  walk  in  my  statutes,  and  ye  shall  keep  my  judg- 
ments and  do  them.  And  ye  shall  be  my  people  and  I 
will  be  your  God."    (Ezekiel  36,  26-28.) 

"For  as  many  as  are  of  the  works  of  the  law  are 
under  a  curse:  for  it  is  written,  Cursed  is  every  one 
which  continueth  not  in  all  things  that  are  written  in 
the  book  of  the  law,  to  do  them.  Now  that  no  man  is 
justified  by  the  law  in  the  sight  of  God  is  evident:  for, 
the  righteous  shall  live  by  faith ;  and  the  law  is  not  of 
faith,   for,   He  that  doeth  them  shall  live  in  them. 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  201 

Christ  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law,  having 
become  a  curse  for  us:  that  upon  the  Gentiles  might 
come  the  blessing-  of  Abraham  in  Christ  Jesus ;  that 
we  might  receive  the  promise  of  the  Spirit  through 
faith.  So  that  the  law  hath  been  our  tutor,  to  bring  us 
unto  Christ,  that  we  might  be  justified  by  faith.  But 
now  that  faith  is  come,  we  are  no  longer  under  a  tu- 
tor. For  ye  are  all  sons  of  God,  through  faith  in  Jesus 
Christ.  There  can  be  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  there  can 
be  neither  bond  nor  free,  there  can  be  no  male  nor  fe- 
male: for  ye  are  all  one  man  in  Christ  Jesus."     (Gal. 

3-) 

"For  the  law  of  the  Spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus 

made  me  free  from  the  law  of  sin  and  of  death."  (Ro- 
mans 8,  2.) 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  203 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

"THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  KNOWS  NO  FATHERLAND.'" 

Let  us  finally  consider  the  reproach  made  by  all  par- 
ties against  the  Social  Democrats  that  they  seek  to  de- 
stroy patriotism  and  nationality,  that  in  their  dream 
of  a  phantom  internationalism  they  trample  under  foot 
the  holiest  of  all  things,  the  love  of  fatherland. 

I. 

This  is  a  serious  reproach  in  these  days  when  the 
sense  of  nationality  is  so  strong,  when  the  nations  have 
paralyzed  each  other's  powers  in  the  development  of 
their  own  means  of  defence.  But  the  longer  peace 
lasts,  the  more  the  nations  are  learning  of  each  other 
and  the  more  criminal  seems  a  devastating  war.  More 
and  more  to-day  the  opinion  is  ga'ning  ground  that  a 
nation  is  not  fulfilling  its  true  dest  y  when  it  extends 
its  borders  and  gives  free  play  to  the  barbarous  idea 
that  its  own  prosperity  must  be  built  on  the  ruins  of 
the  neighboring  lands.  So  patriotism  to-day  goes  hand 
in  hand  with  a  growing  toleration  of  other  peoples.  In 
fact,  no  people  wants  war.  Only  through  mistrust — a 
mistrust  born  on  the  battlefields  of  the  last  century — 
do  nations  still  clash  in  arms.  The  day  will  come,  we 
hope,  when  we  shall  all  realize  that  true  civilization 
means  living  side  by  side  with  other  nations  in  peace. 


Now  is  it  this  picture  of  universal  brotherhood  that 
the  Social  Democrats  wish  to  destroy  ?    Do  they  stamp 


204  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

down  the  flowers  of  the  various  national  cultures  in  the 
gardens  of  the  world  ?  Or  are  they  the  very  party  of 
all  parties  which  upholds  universal  peace?  Hear  the 
words  of  one  of  the  apologists  of  the  Social  Democra- 
cy :  "The  sympathy  for  oppressed  peoples  and  the  live- 
ly desire  to  support  them  in  their  battle  for  rights  and 
independence  is  one  of  the  noblest  traits  of  the  Social 
Democracy.  Whether  it  is  the  question  of  a  people  like 
the  Poles,  who  long-  ago  lost  their  nationality  and  be- 
came merged  in  other  nations,  or  of  smaller  peoples 
like  the  Armenians  and  Cretans,  who  never  have  con- 
stituted a  political  organization,  whose  demands  ex- 
tend no  further  than  to  elementary  guarantees  for  the 
safety  of  life  and  property,  or  of  the  Jews,  oppressed 
by  the  race-hatred  of  their  fellow  citizens — everywhere 
the  Social  Democrats  will  be  found  on  the  side  of  the 
persecuted."     (Issaieff,  "Socialism  and  Public  Life," 

P-  334-) 

There  are  two  kinds  of  patriotism.  One  is  the  sort 
that  is  born  and  dies  within  the  nation  and  never 
thinks  that  a  nation's  ideals  can  be  best  realized  by  a 
sympathetic  understanding  of  other  peoples.  Such  is 
the  miserable  patriotism  of  the  chauvinist.  The  other 
sort  is  no  less  kindled  with  love  of  fatherland,  but  it 
never  fails  to  appreciate  and  respect  the  aspirations  of 
other  peoples.  And  it  is  the  Social  Democrats  above 
all  others  who  recognize  and  cultivate  this  better  kind 
of  patriotism. 

3- 

Whoever  attempts  to  defend  a  great  idea  finds  him 
self  at  times  in  a  false  position — whether  by  his  own 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  205 

fault  or  by  that  of  others.  By  his  own  fault,  when  he 
fails  in  clearness  through  impetuosity,  when  he  ex- 
pects that  others  will  understand  him  at  once,  even  in 
matters  that  require  concentrated  thought.  In  such 
case  he  often  makes  it  appear  that  the  New,  which  he 
is  advocating  with  all  the  ardor  of  his  soul,  is  in  fierce 
irreconcilable  opposition  to  the  Old.  A  chasm  opens 
up,  where  a  sensible  and  conciliatory  way  of  present- 
ing the  truth  would  have  shown  a  real  continuity.  This 
has  sometimes  been  the  experience  of  the  Social  Demo- 
crats in  their  way  of  presenting  the  question  of  na- 
tionality. They  have  at  times  excited  the  most  obsti- 
nate misunderstanding  by  their  passionate  and  un- 
guarded phraseology. 

But  if  they  have  been  at  fault,  how  much  more 
guilty  have  been  their  adversaries !  What  can  be  more 
odious  than  with  set  purpose  to  refuse  to  understand, 
to  pick  out  extreme  phrases  in  the  exuberant  language 
of  some  Social  Democrats,  and  then  to  persistently 
affirm  that  in  urging  internationalism  the  Social 
Democrats  mean  that  all  peoples  shall  be  forced  into 
one  mould — precisely  the  evil  they  strive  against. 

Doubtless  the  Social  Democrats  do  stand  for  inter- 
nationalism ;  they  hold  that  every  man  should  more  and 
more  think  internationally.  Have  their  critics  forgot- 
ten that  there  is  an  international  misery,  an  interna- 
tional oppression  of  the  poor  by  the  rich?  Poverty — 
is  it  a  national  or  an  international  condition?  The 
German  may  feel  differently  from  the  Frenchman,  the 
Englishman  differently  from  the  Russian  ;  but  the  poor 
in  these  lands  are  not  French-poor  or  Russian-poor. 
Hunger  knows  no  Fatherland ;  misery  remains  misery, 


206  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

suffering  and  need  change  not,  whether  the  eagle  of 
the  Empire  or  the  tricolor  of  France  wave  over  them. 
The  Social  Democrats  must  feel  "internationally,"  be- 
cause they  feel  with  the  oppressed. 

4- 

But  just  here  rises  the  conflict  of  conscience  for 
whose  inevitableness  the  Social  Democrats  are  spe- 
cially blamed.  Must  citizens  of  a  country,  for  the  sake 
of  their  country's  advancement  at  the  cost  of  another 
country,  approve  of  the  laws  and  measures  which  ruin 
the  poor  ?  Must  the  English  approve  of  the  spoliation 
of  the  South  African  Republic  because  it  adds  some 
thousand  square  miles  to  England's  realm?  Shall  the 
German  citizen  swell  with  pride  when  German  soldiers 
in  China  stir  up  a  war  against  a  people  the  great  ma- 
jority of  whom  are  responsible  for  no  harm?  Must 
not  the  Russian  of  fine  sensibilities  feel  it  a  disgrace 
and  an  outrage  when  the  struggling  Finn  is  trampled 
on  by  Russian  legions? 

What  kind  of  patriotism  is  it  that  builds  on  the 
ruins  of  the  freedom  of  another  people,  and  that  greets 
with  joy  every  wicked  deed,  if  it  only  happens  under 
the  flag  of  the  "fatherland"?  What  is  it  but  brutal- 
ity? Whose  heart  does  not  shudder  before  the  hid- 
eous spectacle  that  the  great  powers  show  us ;  on  the 
one  hand  mad  preparations  for  war,  and  on  the  other 
powerlessness  to  cope  with  the  distress  of  impover- 
ished populations?  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  men 
must  die  in  suffering  because  the  powers  whose  com- 
bined word  could  stop  it  all — are  afraid  of  each  other. 

What  kind  of  colonial  policy  is  it  that  profits  only 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  207 

the  capitalists,  and  where  "progress"  is  attained 
through  the  blood  of  thousands  of  natives  ruthlessly 
slaughtered?  Is  not  the  patriotism  which  welcomes 
such  things  rather  the  relic  of  a  brutal  age  when  men 
were  all  on  the  defensive  against  each  other — all  alike 
barbarians  ?  Who  dare  call  himself  Christian  and  yet 
condemn  such  questions? 

Questions  like  these  have  come  to  stay. 

To-day  the  interests  of  mankind  are  beginning  to 
take  precedence  of  the  interests  of  states.  There  is 
something  more  than  home  and  fatherland — man,  yes, 
even  bushman  and  negro.  Thanks  neither  to  Church 
nor  state,  radical  nor  conservative,  but  to  the  Social 
Democrats  alone,  we  all  feel  to-day  the  truth  of  the 
assertion:  True  patriotism  is  that  which  regards  the 
freedom  of  all  peoples  as  well  as  that  of  one's  own ; 
even  as  it  is  true  that  no  citizen  is  truly  free  while 
there  remains  a  slave,  so  it  is  true  that  no  people  is 
free  until  all  are  redeemed  from  oppression. 

5- 
But  before  this  patriotism  can  win  the  field  the 
arch  enemy  must  be  driven  out.  Without  the  destruc- 
tion of  capitalism,  true  patriotism  can  not  exist.  The 
capitalists  have  prostituted  patriotism  to  the  selfish 
demands  of  Mammon  for  protection  and  extension  of 
markets.  Have  all  the  soldiers  who  left  wife  and 
child  to  spill  their  blood  on  foreign  battle  fields  fallen 
for  their  country  or  only  for  their  rich  countrymen  ? 
Is  it  not  the  fact  that  our  governments  go  hand  in 
hand  with  capital  and  treat  with  it  as  one  great  power 
with  another?    Do  they  not  ever  lend  willing  ears  to 


208  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

capitalist  proposals,  but  dull  and  unwilling  ears  to  any 
plan  for  the  bettering  of  the  workers'  conditions? 

And  can  a  patriotism  which  allies  itself  with  Mam- 
mon be  genuine  ?  All  the  bitterness  which  such  an  al- 
liance occasions  among  the  masses — can  it  serve  to 
nurture  true  love  of  country?  The  Social  Democracy 
cries  to  the  rulers:  Make  the  interests  of  the  poor 
the  task  of  your  country's  devotion,  love  the  real  sup- 
porters of  the  fatherland  and  you  will  see  that  you 
have  for  the  first  time  insured  the  safety  and  strength 
of  your  land.  Do  away  with  the  false  cosmopolitanism 
of  capitalism  and  you  will  see  that  the  true  cosmo- 
politanism, the  love  of  man  for  his  fellow  man,  is  quite 
consistent  with  the  autonomy  of  the  various  states  and 
with  the  love  of  men  for  their  country.  Patriotism 
is  morally  won  and  inde feasibly  kept  only  when  it  is 
permeated  with  the  purifying  element  of  a  realized 
brotherhood  of  man. 

6. 

Now  if  this  creed  is  marvelous  in  the  eyes  of  men 
of  the  world,  those  who  regard  life  as  too  complicated, 
too  inscrutable,  too  "practical,"  to  justify  our  opening 
such  wide  perspectives — why  should  we  not  at  least 
see  those  take  their  stand  on  the  side  of  the  Social 
Democratic  faith  and  hope  whose  own  confession 
should  place  them  there — the  Christians?  How  can 
Christians  speak  of  the  "folly"  of  the  international 
faith  of  the  Social  Democrats?  How  can  Stoecker 
speak  of  the  Social  Democrats'  "hatred  of  their  father- 
land"? How  could  Naumann  name  his  Christian  So- 
cial party  "National  Social"?     Is  there  one  attitude 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  20O, 

of  which  Christians  should  be  more  ashamed  than  this  ? 
Do  not  Christians  know  that  as  disciples  of  the  Savior 
they  should  be  men  of  hope,  men  of  the  future  and  so 
men  of  a  cosmopolitan  view? 

To  believe  in  the  words  of  the  Bible  means  to  ex- 
pect the  Kingdom  of  God,  and  this  Kingdom  comprises 
all  mankind.  To  be  a  Christian  means  to  live  in  the 
great  hope  that  God  will  be  all  in  all. 

But  Christianity  seems  to  have  forgotten  all  that. 
This  hope  is  at  most  the  closing  paragraph  in  its  clever 
dogmatics.  It  is  no  longer  truly  "hopes"  or  "awaits." 
It  is  lost  in  the  world.    It  has  no  living  God ! 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Social  Democracy  is  inter- 
national, "homeless."  It  is  inspired  by  the  thought  of 
one  common  humanity.  And  herein  it  follows  the  Bi- 
ble— the  religious  guide  of  the  Christian! 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  2TI 


CHAPTER  IX. 

ALL  THINGS  MUST  BECOME  NEW. 

Jesus  made  all  things  new.  It  might  be  that  this 
new  state  was  to  come  immediately  into  being  or  it 
might  be  that  it  was  to  be  developed  in  a  long  and 
painful  evolution.  The  former  way  was  the  hope  of 
the  early  Christians,  the  latter  way  has  proved  to  be 
the  fact.  It  is  no  part  of  our  duty  to  discuss  the 
wherefore  of  this.  But  we  maintain  that,  in  spite  of 
all,  the  early  Christians  were  not  deceived  in  the  main 
thing,  and  that  the  long,  painful  history  through 
which  the  Kingdom  of  God  must  come  takes  away 
nothing  from  its  quality  of  newness. 

And  the  best  spirits  of  to-day  are  really  beginning 
to  believe  in  the  possibility  of  a  new  world.  They  feel 
that  the  old  moral  and  religious  categories  are  no 
longer  valid ;  that  they  have  served  their  day  and  have 
become  mere  phrases.  Men  are  longing  for  a  new- 
world  of  righteousness,  in  which  Mammon  is  truly 
overcome.  In  other  words,  they  are  beginning  to  un- 
derstand what  was  originally  meant  by  the  words 
"Kingdom  of  God" — something  wholly  new!     , 

Jesus  had  an  eternal,  unchanging  must  within  him, 
the  compulsion  of  divine  love.  And  this  same  com- 
pulsion moves  the  Social  Democracy.  The  truth  was 
spoken  by  that  Social  Democrat  who  said:  "He  who 
has  not  the  spirit  does  not  understand  our  cause." 
What  the  Social  Democracy  has  in  common  with  the 
Gospel  is  not  single  debatable  measures  and  rules,  but 


212  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

a  great  irresistible  must,  in  the  faith  of  which  it  an- 
nounces a  new  order. 

The  Living  God  makes  men  great,  free  and  broad. 
Whoever  has  Him  comprehends  all  things,  suffers  all 
things,  believes  all  things,  hopes  all  things.  He  has  no 
mean  thoughts,  he  holds  himself  apart  from  nothing. 

The  activities  of  men  are  endlessly  complex;  lives 
of  folly  are  tangled  with  lives  of  wisdom  in  almost  in- 
extricable confusion.  There  is  a  feverish  movement 
in  humanity,  apparently  without  sense  or  plan.  It  tes- 
tifies that  men  will  to  live ;  that  stagnation  is  death ; 
that  life  is  progression.  But  the  advance  is  over  ruins, 
over  the  graves  of  the  dead:  each  advance  wrestles 
arduously  for  its  right  to  be,  against  an  uncompre- 
hending present.  Man  is  compelled  to  destroy;  the 
consuming  flames  of  denial  blaze  up  within  him.  He 
destroys  that  he  may  live ;  he  destroys  because  he 
must. 

And  through  all  men's  agitations  and  struggles 
runs  one  great  thought:  the  consciousness  that  their 
agony  and  effort  are  not  in  vain,  that  they  are  bring- 
ing mankind  ever  nearer  the  goal  of  truth.  He  who 
knows  in  his  heart  the  living  God  knows  that  man  will 
conquer  in  the  end.  He  sees  the  confusion — but  be- 
yond *it — peace.  He  sees  the  folly — but  beyond  it — 
light.  He  does  not  look  with  the  eyes  of  the  dreamer, 
chasing  a  phantasy  of  his  own  creation.  No.  Life  is 
real  to  him.  God's  name  is  not  an  empty  word  for 
him  to  serve  the  official  cult  of  a  piety  in  Mammon's 
interest ;  not  a  weapon  for  a  party  controversy  in  the- 
ology ;  not  a  scientific  sciolism  tossed  about  in  the 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  213 

winds  of  metaphysical  dogmas.  No,  he  knows  and 
has  his  God.     God  lives ! 

How  shall  he  express  this  tremendous  truth  that 
swells  within  his  breast?  How  shall  he  communicate 
this  great  secret  to  a  lost  world?  What  are  words, 
stammering,  halting  words?  Not  words,  but  deeds, 
can  express  Him  Who  Is.  To  do — and  to  do  means 
faith.  One  thing  alone  is  needful,  to  hold  fast  to  the 
reality  of  God;  not  to  believe  in  evil,  in  sin,  in  dark- 
ness— but  to  believe  in  men  always  and  everywhere, 
even  when  they  stumble  and  err.  To  believe  in  their 
divine  possibilities  and  capabilities,  to  believe  the  light 
in  them.    Forward,  to  meet  the  living  God ! 

God  gave  his  Church  a  living  word.  The  Church 
has  corrupted  it  to  self-righteous  piety,  ceremony  and 
dogma.  It  toys  with  God.  It  pretends  devotion ;  it 
plays  hide  and  seek  with  God's  promises;  it  acts  as  if 
its  dogmas  were  the  rules  of  the  Kingdom  of  God ;  it 
keeps  back  the  Gospel  in  its  artificial  formulae. 

Then  the  waters  of  God  burst  through  the  walls  of 
this  dam  of  self-righteousness,  and,  led  by  strangers 
to  the  Church  and  its  dogmas,  these  fructifying  waters 
spread  over  the  parched  meadows  of  humanity.  Oth- 
ers must  preach  what  the  Church  should  preach,  oth- 
ers set  in  motion  the  forces  which  the  Church  should 
call  out,  others  proclaim  that  truth  which  is  hidden  be- 
hind the  Church's  creeds. 

For  it  is  the  Social  Democracy  which  now  demands 
Righteousness — truthfulness  in  outward  relations,  bet- 
ter conditions,  sounder  bodies,  lighter  dwellings,  co- 
operative production.    It  says :  What  lives  and  creates 


214  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

must  appear  in  outward  results.  Theories  and  pious 
reflections  will  not  avail.  Let  us  see  results,  not  sim- 
ply "new  hearts'' !  Hearts  are  new  only  when  condi- 
tions are  new. 

Is  the  Social  Democracy  not  right?  Dare  the 
Church  with  its  own  one-sided  worship  of  "spirit"  re- 
proach it  with  one-sidedness  ? 

That  divine  must,  born  of  eternity,  which  the 
Church  has  buried  in  silence  under  the  temptations 
of  worldly  ease,  drives  on  the  Social  Democracy.  It 
cries  to  all  the  world.  All  things  must,  they  must  be- 
come new  !  It  wakes  the  masses,  it  rebukes,  threatens, 
promises.  The  Church  cries,  Revolution !  But  it  is 
only  the  bursting  into  power  of  the  truth  of  the  Gos- 
pel. 

Who  to-day  understands  that  old  word  of  the  Crea- 
tor: "Subdue  the  earth,"  the  Church  or  the  Social 
Democracy?  When  the  latter  restores  "matter"  to  its 
place  of  honor,  and  predicts  a  future  commonwealth  in 
which  all  who  labor  shall  be  happy,  what  else  is  it  do- 
ing but  giving  new  expression  to  the  original  happy 
faith  in  the  goodness  of  God's  creation?  Was  not 
this  God's  mind  when  He  gave  the  earth  to  men  ?  x\nd 
when  the  Church  maintains  that  the  Social  Democracy 
is  godless  in  its  materialism,  is  it  not  plain  that  the 
Church  has  herself  missed  the  way  of  the  living  God? 

Our  law  and  morals  must  yield  to  a  higher  order 
— so  say  the  Social  Democrats,  and  the  words  are  in- 
terpreted as  an  attack  on  the  most  sacred  values  of 
life.    But  a  glance  into  the  Bible  will  tell  us  that  these 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  215 

words  are  only  the  expression  of  God's  purpose  with 
the  world. 

The  Social  Democrats  are  derided  as  "men  without 
a  country,"  because  they  believe  in  a  brotherhood  of 
mankind  and  oppose  the  chauvinistic  "patriotism"  of 
the  capitalists.  But  who  has  better  interpreted  the 
word  of  the  Lord :  "As  I  live,  the  whole  earth  shall  be 
filled  with  my  glory." 

Grand,  noble,  true,  necessary  is  the  work  of  the 
Social  Democracy.  In  it  God's  promises  are  coming 
to  fulfillment.  The  Social  Democrats  are  spreading 
abroad  His  truth,  for — they  must. 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  217 


THE  LIST  OF  SUSTAINERS 

The  Co-Operative  Printing  Company  desires  to  ex- 
press grateful  appreciation  of  the  generous  terms  upon 
which  Rev.  Hermann  Kutter  transferred  the  American 
rights  to  this  extraordinary  book ;  of  the  liberality  and 
tireless  labors  of  Rufus  W.  Weeks,  who  furnished  and 
revised  the  translation  and  read  final  proofs,  and  of 
the  assistance  of  each  and  every  one  of  the  following 
who  have  paid  in  advance  for  one  or  more  copies  of 
the  book,  thus  enabling  us  to  publish  it  without  difficul- 
ty or  debt. 

It  is  a  real  honor  to  have  helped  in  putting  forth 
such  a  notable  and  serviceable  volume — a  lasting  me- 
morial of  a  noble  deed  for  the  cause  of  Socialism 
which  you  may  show  your  children  and  friends  with  a 
worthy  pride — and,  as  this  is  our  first  effort  at  publish- 
ing a  full-fledged  book,  we  shall  remember  with  pecu- 
liar gratitude  each  one  of  the  Sustainers,  or  Assistant 
Publishers,  whose  names  appear  below: 

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set  opposite  their  names : 

Copies. 

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Rufus  W.  Weeks,  New  York  City,  N.  Y 15 

Rev.  E.  E.  Carr,  Chicago,  111 15 

George  Foster  Peabody,  Lake  George.  N.  Y 15 

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2l8  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

Mrs.  Fannie  E.  Deuser,  Hazelton,  Kans. 

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J.  H.  Atkins,  Pasco,  Wash. 

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GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  2IO, 

J.  S.  Borden,  La  Mesa,  Calif. 

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L.  T.  Brown,  Spencer,  N.  C. 

David  H.  Brown,  E.  Point,  Fla. 

Rev.  Harvey  Dee  Brown,  Milwaukee,  Wis. 

Marion  C.  Brown,  Perry,  Okla. 

Harvey  J.  Brower,  Battleford,  Sask.,  Can. 

N.  S.  Burgess,  West  Plains,  Mo. 

C.  H.  Bungay,  Spokane,  Wash. 

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David  Calkins,  Gainesville,  Tex. 

A.  G.  Callender,  Arnold,  Pa. 

Mrs.  Ella  Carr,  Chicago,  111. 

Grant  Chapin,  Green,  Kans. 

H.  Chilcote,  Trough  Creek,  Pa. 

A.  L.  Clampit,  Mt.  Vernon,  Mo. 

W.  W.  Clark,  Egypt,  Okla. 

G.  S.  Gulick  Clark,  Riverside,  Calif. 

Charles  P.  Collier,  Altamont,  Kans. 

Rev.  A.  J.  Collison,  Homestead,  Pa. 

Mrs.  E.  B.  Cooke,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

C.  M.  Cronk,  Montfort,  Wis. 

Edw.  and  Martha  Croushore,  Fayette  City,  Pa. 

Dr.  J.  S.  Crow,  Chicago,  111. 

Roy  Crosby,  Litchfield,  Minn. 

John  M.  Crook,  Chicago,  111. 

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Jas.  Davis,  Milwaukee,  Wis. 

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220  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

0.  A.  Fairchild,  Silver  Creek,  N.  Y.     . 

Prof.  Chas.  P.  Fagnani,  New  York  City,  N.  Y. 

Mrs.  J.  H.  Fellows,  Spearfish,  S.  Dak. 

Mrs.  Nora  E.  Ferrell,  Erie,  Pa. 

May  Coghlan  Fitzpatrick,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

F.  Fensterinaker,  Berwick,  Pa. 

1.  N.  Fitzpatrick,  Star  City,  Sask.,  Can. 

G.  A.  Forsgard,  Houston,  Tex. 
J.  S.  Freeman,  Kenwood,  N.  Y. 

Rev.  E.  M.  Frank,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 
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Jos.   D.  Fraivillig,   Schenectady,  N.  Y. 
Rev.  E.  T.  R.  Fripp,  White  City,  Fla. 

A.  J.  Gant,  McMinnville,  Ore. 
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Lester  Geer,  Aberdeen,  S.  Dak. 
Daniel  O.  Gittings,  Pittsburg,  Pa. 
Prof.  A.  N.  Gilbertson,  Will  mar,  Minn. 
Arthur  H.  Gleason,  New  York  City,  N.  Y. 
John  Govan,  Sequim,  Wash. 

B.  M.  Gordon,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

W.  E.  Godsey,  Los  Angeles,  Calif. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Geo.  H.  Goebel,  Newark,  N.  J. 

Aug.  Graunke,  Milwaukee,  Wis. 

Mrs.  Malhilda  Grote,  Evansville,  Ind. 

Wm.  C.  Green,  Pacific  Grove,  Calif. 

H.  A.   Guerth,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

Raymond  Otis  Hanna,  New  York  City,  N.  Y. 

C.  B.  Guthrie,  Greensboro,  N.  C 
Scott  Haines,  Freeport,  Pa. 

Wm.  J.  F.  Hannemann,  Chicago,  111. 

F.  R.  Hannemann,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

Wm.  L.  Havenstrite,  New  York  City,  N.   Y. 

Leon  A.  Hall,  Boscawen,  N.  H. 

E.  J.  Harley,  Los  Angeles,  Calif. 
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T.  J.  Hinton,  Tulare,  Calif. 

C.  C.  Hitchcock,  Ware,  Mass. 

Wm.  Higginbottom,  Creelsboro,  Ky. 

F.  W.  Hirt,  Erie,  Pa. 

John  J.  Hodgins,  Schenectady,  N.  Y. 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  221 

Harvey  Hollenbeck,  Kingston,  N.  Y. 
Rev.  Oliver  C.  Horsman,  Morristown,  N.  J. 
Rev.  N.  S.  Hoagland,  Tvngsboro,  Mass. 
S.  L.  Hoover,  Knoxville,  Tenn. 

C.  J.  Hoffman,  Mansfield,  O. 
Solomon  Hoxie,  Chicago,  111. 

M.  L.  Huddleston,  Jacksonville,  Tex. 

Jas.  Hummel,  Gloversville,  N.  Y. 

E.  H.  Hummel,  Port  Stanley,  Wash. 

Rev.  and  Mrs.  Alexander  Irvine,  New  York  City,  N.  Y. 

J.  W.  Jackson,  E.  Liverpool,  O. 

A.  M.  Jerauld,  Chattanooga,  Tenn. 

David  J.  Jenkins,  Cambridge,  O. 

Jesse  R.  Johnson,  Clay  Center,  O. 

J.  S.  Jones,  Copeville,  Tex. 

Mrs.  Mariette  L.  Johnson,  Fairhope,  Ala. 

Edw.  Karley,  Chesley,  Ont,  Can. 

Rev.  Alex.  Kent,  Washington,  D.  C. 

A.  G.  Ketchum,  Petersburg,  Alaska. 

Geo.  A.  Kelly,  Hotchkiss,  Colo. 

S.  A.  Keep,  Jennings,  La. 

D.  W.  Kennedy,  Du  Quoin,  111. 
R.  H.  Kirkpatrick,  Drew,  Ore. 
Dr.  J.  A.  Kirkpatrick,  Chicago,  111. 
Jas.  Kimmel,  Bayfield,  Colo. 
Ralph  L.  Kline,  Youngstown,  O. 
Fred  Krumsick,  Nashville,  111. 

A.  Kuppinger,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

E.  J.  Taniblin,  Spokane,  Wash. 
G.  M.  Larson,  Roekford,  111. 

N.  W.  Lermond,  Thomaston,  Me. 
Dr.  Geo.  N.  Lemmer,  Spooner,  Wis. 

E.  S.  Lowe,  Drain,  Ore. 

Rev.  John  D.  Long,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 
Edwin  F.  Ludwig,  Washington,  D.  C. 
Robert  Lynn,  Newark,  N.  J. 

F.  H.  Marsh,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 
Wm.  Maxwell,  Gloversville,  N.  Y. 

Alex.  MacKinnon,  Glace  Bay,  N.  S.,  Can. 

Wm.  MacKinnon,  Glace  Bay,  N.  S.,  Can. 

John  Y.  Mardick,  Charleston,  Mo. 

Rev.  R.  H.  MacPherson,  Marble  Mountain,  N.  S.,  Can. 

W.  F.   Maywald,  Hartley,  la. 

O.  F.  Mallory,  Fremont,  Ind. 

J.  F.  Massey,  Douglas,  Ariz. 

Mrs.  S.  W.  McClellan,  Grand  Rapids,  Mich. 


222  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

W.  H.  McFall,  West  Concord,  N.  H. 

John  J.  McKay,  New  Glasgow,  N.  S.,  Can. 

Dr.  C.  W.  McDade,  Ceylon,  Minn. 

I.  D.  McFadden,  Paonia,  Colo. 

A.  McMullan,  Dominion,  C.  B.,  Can. 

Rev.  Walter  H.  McPherson,  Chicago,  111. 

W.  P.  Metcalf,  Albuquerque,  N.  Mex. 

Mrs.  K.  L.  M.  Meserole,  Bellport,  L.  I.,  N.  Y. 

J.  B.  Meredith,  Reed  Springs,  Mo. 

Fred  E.   Miller,  Grand  Junction,  Mich. 

M.  Misere,  Burton  City,  Ohio. 

Atty.  Wm.  H.  Morgan,  Aberdeen,  S.  Dak. 

H.  P.  Moyer,  Chicago,  111. 

Wm.  M.  Morgan,  Fortuna,  Calif. 

Rev.  ,S.  W.  Motley,  Twin  Falls,  Ida. 

Dr.  Wm.  Moore,  New  Albany,  Ind. 

S.   Mori,  Newton  Center,   Mass. 

Chas.  K.  Musgrove,  Scottdale,  Pa. 

Richard  L.  Munn,  Hollis,  Okla. 

J.  W.  Murphy,  Murphy,  la. 

C.  C.  Nelson,  Hamilton,  Mont. 

Varner  Nelson,  Sheldon,  la. 

Miss  Blanche  Nesmith,   Springfield,   Mo. 

Rev.  A.  Noll,  McKeesport,  Pa. 

C.  E.  Obenchain,  Greenville,  Tex. 

Tobias  S.  Ochs,  Reinholds  Sta.,  Pa. 

S.  Oian,  Erskim,  Minn. 

C.  H.  Owen,  Harvey,  111. 

Paul  J.  Paulsen,  Rock  Springs,  Wyo. 

Lyman  Payne,  Evanston,  Wyo. 

Dr.  Levi  Parker,  Boston,  Mass. 

Mrs.  Lulu  E.  Pennybacker,  Vienna,  W.  Va. 

Chas.  G.  Pease,  M.  D.,  New  York  City,  N.  Y. 

R.  G.  Penn,  Sr.,  Altus,  Okla. 

Joe  Pevril,  Piedmont,  Mo. 

A.  J.  Pettigrew,  Manatee,  Fla. 

John  A.  Peterson,  Evanston,  111. 

F.  Pfeiffer,  Oshkosh,  Wis. 
Geo.  Pfeifley,  Green,  Kan. 

Local  Pfafftown,  Geo.  F.  Wilson,  Sec,  Pfafftown,  N.  C. 
Martin  Luzerne  Phares,  Grand  Ledge,  Mich. 
W.  H.  Pitt,  Burson,  Calif. 

G.  H.  Poor,  Milwaukee,  Wis. 
J.  H.  Pride,  Amherst,  S.  Dak. 
J.  P.  Pickens,  Letart,  W.  Va. 
A.  C.  Price,  Renfrew,  Pa. 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  223 

Rev.  W.  A.  Prosser,  McKees  Rocks,  Pa. 

D.  Pratt,  Porterville,  Calif. 

J.  J.  Prater,  Dennison,  Tex. 

John  F.  Putnam,  Danvers,  Mass. 

J.  Quick,  Coquille,  Ore. 

Wm.  H.  Ramsay,  Derwent,  O. 

D.  W.  Rankin,  Jennings,  La. 

Rand  School:     W.  J.  Ghent,  Rosa  Laddon,  New  York  City. 

Gustave  Reiche,  Seattle,  Wash. 

A.  W.  Reed,  Illinois  City,  111. 

C.  E.  Reeves,  Benton  Harbor,  Mich. 
Robt.  B.  Ringler,  Reading,  Pa. 
Harry  S.  Richards,  Chicago,  111. 

J.  C.  Riechers,  Twin  Falls,  Ida. 
Wm.  Rosser,  Nanticoke,  Pa. 

D.  F.  Romig,  Williamsport,  Pa. 

J.  W.  Robertson,  M.  D.,  Hotchkiss,  Colo. 

E.  Rosinquist,  Cambridge,  Minn. 
Rev.  C.  H.  Rogers,  Hutchinson,  Kans. 
R.  Antione  Rogers,  New  Orleans,  La. 
J.  B.  Rutherford,  San  Dimas,  Calif. 

J.  H.  Ryckman,  Atty.,  Evanston,  Wyo. 

W.  L.  Sax,  Colville,  Wash. 

Chris.  Sauers,  Erie,  Pa. 

Joseph  Saunders,  Saginaw,  Mich. 

Saugus  Socialist  Club,  C.  H.  Townsend,  Saugus,  Mass. 

John  Schonborn,  Las  Cruces,  N.  Mex. 

H.  L.  Schell,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Wm.  Scott,  Villisca,  la. 

W.  H.  Sergeant,  Newark,  N.  J. 

J.  W.  Shaw,  Milburn,  Okla. 

T.  J.  Shenton,  Nanaimo,  B.  C,  Can. 

S.  L.  Shorthill,  Wakeeney,  Kans. 

Mrs.  H.  L.  Sieghartner,  Rock  Island,  111. 

Lauren  P.  Smith,  Warren,  Ohio. 

Myron  D.   Smith,  Nashville,  111. 

Rev.  Jas.  L.  Smiley,  Annapolis,  Md. 

Chas.  W.  Smiley,  Baltimore,  Md. 

Geo.  L.  Spencer,  Providence,  R.  I. 

Mrs.  M.  A.  Spurgeon,  Waco,  Texas. 

E.  F.  Stanton,  Memphis,  Tex. 

L.  M.  Sterns,  Humboldt,  Neb. 

W.  J.  Standley,  Chicago,  111. 

Geo.  H.  Strobell,  Newark,  N.  J. 

Rose  Pastor  Stokes,  Stamford,  Conn. 

J.  G.  Phelps  Stokes,  Stamford,  Conn. 


224  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

S.  A.  Stowe,  Coeur  D'Alene,  Ida. 

Chas.  J.  St.  John,  Toronto,  Out.,  Can. 

Rev.  O.  O.  Sundberg,  Nashville,  Tenn. 

A.  G.  Swanson,  San  Diego,  Calif. 

Taylor  Bros.,  Winston  Salem,  N.  C. 

A.  J.  Taylor,  Douglas,  Ariz. 

H.  F.  Thomas,  Providence,  R.  I. 

Charles   E.   Thompson,   Arleta,   Ore. 

Rev.  Thos.  J.  Thompson,  Pekin,  111. 

R.  L.  Thomson,  Toronto,  Ont.,  Can. 

Geo.  H.  Townsend,  Dundas,  Ont.,  Can. 

John  Van  De  Lester,  Kalamazoo,  Mich. 

Dr.  H.  J.  Von  Lackum,  Dysart,  la. 

Ohannes  Varshag,  Denver,  Colo. 

R.  L.  Wainwright,  Egan,  La. 

J.  J.  Wall,  Centerville,  Iowa. 

P.  A.  Wanless,  Cresco,  la. 

Frank  W.  Warthorst,  Bakersfield,  Calif. 

J.  J.  Wasmer,  Green,  Kans. 

John  L.  Way,  Tulare,  Calif. 

Rev.  R.  M.  Webster,  Elmonte,  Calif. 

F.  Weber,  Peotone,  111. 

Mrs.  Jos.  Weisenberger,  Porterville,  Calif. 

Albert  Weigle,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

J.  K.  Wellman,  Leavenworth,  Kan. 

T.  B.  Wells,  Aberdeen,  S.  Dak. 

Rev.  and  Mrs.  Eliot  White,  Worcester,  Mass. 

F.  R.  Whipple,  Auburn,  N.  Y. 

S.  Willcoxon,  Minneapolis,  Kan. 

Ivan  R.  Winters,  Bellingham,  Wash. 

J.  M.  Woodcock,  Sioux,  Neb. 

Rev.  T.  W.  Woodrow,  Hobart,  Okla. 

James  F.  Woods,  Groton,  Mass. 

Mattie  and  Bessie  M.  Womsley,  Allegheny,  Pa. 

Mrs.  J.  H.  Yocum,  Darby,  Pa. 

P.  H.  Zender,  Austin,  Minn. 

The  following  have  paid  for  one  copy : 

Chas.  E.  Allen,  Harrisonville,  Mo. 
Wm.  F.  Anderson,  Mankato,  Minn. 
W.  A.  Arnold,  Milwaukee,  Wis. 
Thomas  Ashmore,  New  Wilmington,  Pa. 
J.  C.  Ayres,  Kansas  City,  Kan. 
C.  Bangs,  Savannah,  Ga. 
J.  W.  Barnett,  Sedalia,  Mo. 
A.  W.  Beach,  Sheldon,  Iowa. 


GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY  225 

O.  G.  Beito,  Effington,  S.  Dak. 

Mrs.  F.  H.  Benner,  Campbell,  Calif. 

C.  T.  Bent,  New  Glasgow,  N.  S.,  Can. 

T.  H.  B.  Bodenhamer,  Sparta,  Mo. 

W.  E.  Boynton,  Ashtabula,  O. 

L.  L.  Brande,  Pittsburg,  Pa. 

Edwin  A.  Brenholtz,  Turnersville,  Tex. 

John  H.  Bullard,  Schuylerville,  N.  Y. 

Rev.  Thos.  P.  Byrnes,  Erie,  Pa. 

E.  F.  Christian,  Alta,  la. 

A.  B.  Clinch,  Butte,  Mont. 

M.  E.  Connell,  De  Pass,  Wyo. 

C.  N.  Cornelius,  Newberg,  Ore. 

Rev.  Sidney  Herbert  Cox,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

Dr.  A.  T.  Cuzner,  Gilmore,  Fla. 

L.  Dennis,  Altaraont,  Kans. 

J.  H.  Dennison,  Hubbard,  O. 

H.  E.  Dye,  Visalia,  Calif. 

Foster  Ellis,  Chicago,  111. 

Oscar  B.  Fenn,  Jersey  City,  N.  J. 

S.  K.  Fleming,  Montgomery,  Ala. 

Dr.  A.  F.  Green,  Cleveland,  Ohio. 

R.  E.  Goslin,  Arnold,  Pa. 

John  M.  Hansen,  Clinton,  la. 

Thos.  Hickling,  Jacksonville,  Fla. 

Rev.  W.  C.  Hopkins,  Toledo,  Ohio. 

Rev.  M.  L.  Howe,  Belding,  Mich. 

Rev.  John  Brewster  Hubbs,  Geneva,  N.  Y. 

August  Huck,  Newburgh,  Ind. 

Alvin   Huff,   Easton,  Pa. 

August  II.  Hunholz,  Milwaukee,  Wis. 

C.  L.  Huiibut,  Ithaca,  N.  Y. 

Rev.  Win.  S.  Jackson,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

John  C.  Jensen,  Malad  City,  Ida. 

Robt.  E.  A.  Lansdowne,  372  E.  72d  St.,  New  York  City,  N.  Y. 

T.  A.  Deasure,  E.  Des  Moines,  la. 

C.  P.  Lee,  Arkansas  City,  Kan. 

Herm.  Lehmkuhl.  Milwaukee,  Wis. 

Joseph  Lentz,  Struthers,  Ohio. 

B.  E.  Llndblad,  Ely,  Minn. 

C.  Loehwing,  Chicago,  111. 

A.  L.  McFarlane,  Freewater,  Ore. 
E.  N.  McGary,  Maple  Plain,  Minn. 
J.  H.  McKalip,  Rew,  Pa. 
C.  D.  McLaughlin,  Milan,  111. 
August  Melin,  West  Duluth,  Minn. 


226  GOD  AND  THE  SOCIAL  DEMOCRACY 

Ross  J.  Miller,  North  English,  la. 

Mrs.  M.  E.  Montgomery,  Madison,  111. 

Eli  Moorhouse,  Vernon,  B.  C,  Can. 

Mrs.  B.  H.  Noxon,  Ithaca,  N.  Y. 

E.  I.  Palmer,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

R.  Pease,  Filer,  Ida. 

J.  W.  Peebles,  Leesville,  Tex. 

Clyde  Radcliffe,   Madison,   Ind. 

Henry  Redman,  Hillsboro,  Kans. 

Henry  H.  Rowland,  Lima,  N.  Y. 

Jacob  Rufi,  Chanute,  Kans. 

C.  S.  Scheffler,  Reading,  Pa. 

John  Schneider,  Paradise  Valley,  Nev. 

T.  B.  Southall,  Amarillo,  Tex. 

Edith  A.   Spear,  St.  Petersburg,  Fla. 

J.  B.  Smith,  Saxon,  N.  C. 

Miss  M.  Stull,  Albuquerque,  N.  Mex. 

Theo.  Thorson,  Forest  City,  la. 

M.  C.  Tipton,  Breckenridge,  Tex. 

Charles  Todd,  Arkansas  City,  Kans. 

J.  Willis  Tonkin,  Trenton,  N.  J. 

John  Tullett,  Greensburg,  Kans. 

O.  T.  Turner,  McKinney,  Texas. 

Dr.  Van  Pelt,  Montgomery,  Ala. 

W.  F.  Vroom,  New  York  City,  N.  Y. 

Geo.  A.  Wake,  Los  Angeles,  Cal. 

J.  W.  Waffensmith,  Espanola,  N.  Mex. 

Rev.  Wm.  A.  Ward,  Arrow  Rock,  Mo. 

Wm.  H.  Warfield,  Franklinville,  Md. 

Dr.  P.  M.  Webster,  Long  Beach,  Calif. 

C.  R.  Williamson,  West  Chester,  Pa. 

A.  Wilson,  Englewood,  Colo. 

Clayton  F.  Woods,  Bakersfield,  Calif. 

Mrs.  A.  M.  Worden,  Kenwood,  N.  Y. 


GOD   AND   THE   SOCIAL   DEMOCRACY  227 


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What  the  Christian  Socialists  Stand  For,  by  Ru- 
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228  GOD   AND   THE   SOCIAL   DEMOCRACY 

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GOD   AND   THE    SOCIAL   DEMOCRACY  229 

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23O  GOD   AND   THE   SOCIAL   DEMOCRACY 

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GOD  AND   THE   SOCIAL   DEMOCRACY  23 1 

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town  by  the  fifteen-year-old  son  of  the  minister.  It 
is  a  rich  portrayal  of  the  world  in  miniature  under 
capitalism,  showing  how  business,  politics,  relig- 
ion and  social  life  are  affected.  You  will  enjoy  its 
keen  shafts,  its  boyish  freshness  and  originality. 
$1.60. 

The  Uprising  of  the  Many,  by  Charles  Edward 
Russel.  The  most  comprehensive  and  interesting 
account  of  co-operation,  public  ownership,  political 
reform  and  industrial  progress  in  all  nations  of  the 
world  we  have  yet  seen.  Of  incalculable  value.  32 
pages  of  photographs.    $1.60. 

The  Struggle  for  Existence,  by  W.  T.  Mills.  The 
greatest  American  work  on  Scientific  Socialism. 
$2.00. 

Capital,  by  Karl  Marx.  Revised  edition,  trans- 
lated by  Ernest  Untermann.  The  economic  Bible 
of  Socialism.  No  one  is  well-read  in  economy  who 
has  not  read  Marx.    Price,  $2.00. 

The  Ancient  Lowly,  by  C.  Osborne  Ward.  An 
exhaustive,  instructive  study  of  the  workers  from 
before  the  time  of  Moses.  Gives  the  real  cause  and 
meaning  of  the  Exodus,  explains  the  communism  of 
Jesus  and  the  apostolic  church  and  traces  the  pa- 
thetic, terrible,  heroic  labor  struggle  through  an- 
cient Greece  and  Rome.    Throws  astonishing  light 


232  GOD   AND   THE   SOCIAL   DEMOCRACY 

on  the  early  Christian  movement.  Every  student, 
especially  every  minister,  should  have  it.  A  mon- 
umental work  entirely  unapproached.  Two  large 
volumes,  $2.00  each. 

Russia's  Message,  by  English  Walling.  The 
heart-cry  of  a  great  people  in  birth-agony — the 
voice  of  the  awakening  world.  475  large  pages,  50 
pages  of  illustrations.  The  greatest  contribution  to 
recent  Socialist  literature.    $3.00. 

Order  all  Socialist  Books  of  the  Christian  So- 
cialist, 5623  Drexel  Ave.,  Chicago. 


Univerelty  of  C"1'1"1™."  _.CIL .jy 
SOUTHERN  BEG.ONAL  LIBRARY  F^TY^ 

Irom  which  it  wa»  borrowed^ 


01  OCT  18 


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